
Class V -S 9-C^'^ 3 
Book J-V^z— 

COraUOHT DKPOSOl 



GEMS FROM GEORGE H. MILES. 



THE POET'S PRAISE. 



Hail to the bard! whose peerless song 
On duty, beauty, love and truth, 
Though heard at first in careless youth. 
Rings still in memory clear and stron<r. 
That bard P II praise. His heaven-selt fiam^, 
Hts genius, ardor, art and skill. 
Though he is gone, all linger still 
And plead for him his right to fame. 

I've read Christine with tears and smiles 
Ajid learned to praise the poet Miles. 

T. E. C. 





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gems from 
George H. Miles 



ANNOTATED AND EDITED 

By THE A UTHOR 

of 

" The Pillar and Ground of the 
Truth ' ' 



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3,5 



CHICAGO 

J. S. HYLx^ND (St* company 
1901 



THE LIBRARY OF 
QC-MGRESS, 

Two Cuf-iEd RECHfveO 

NOV. 8 1901 

COPV«»OHT ENTRY 

CLASS cu KXa No 

coPY a 



re? 2.313 



Introduction, Notes, Illustrations and New Matter 

Copyrighted by THOMAS E. COX 

igoi 



c c c 



c t * e t ' 



INTRODUCTION. 



The purpose of this volume is to present, in 
popular form, a few characteristic selections from 
the poems, the plays, the novels, the essays and 
the orations of George H. Miles. It is hoped 
that these " Gems " may give pleasure to our 
readers, while proving beyond cavil our author's 
title to immortality. Some of the purest pearls 
of thought, some of the sweetest songs and most 
ennobling sentences, in the whole range of Eng- 
lish literature flowed from his gifted pen. Vivid 
imagery, refined sentiment and natural tender- 
ness characterize everything he wrote. 

George Henry Miles was born in Baltimore July 
31, 1824. His genealogy on the paternal side 
goes back to Puritan and English stock. On the 
maternal side we find Scotch and Hebrew-Ger- 
man blood. His father, William Miles, some 
time United States Consul at Hayti, was a native 
of New York. His grandfather was Captain 
George H. Miles. His great-grandfather, the 
first of his ancestors of whom we have definite 

5 



6 Introduction. 

account, was Col. Thomas Miles, an officer In the 
British army, whose body lies buried at Walling- 
ford, near New Haven. 

The mother of George H. Miles was Sarah 
Mickle — " a great woman," says one who knew 
her well. " She loved good literature and taught 
her children to love it. . . . She had good sense, 
good humor, and good looks." Her father was 
Robert Mickle, the son of a Scotch settler in 
Baltimore. Her mother was Elizabeth Etting, of 
Philadelphia, whose ancestors were of Hebrew 
extraction. To this Elizabeth Etting Alickle, 
Miles' grandmother, who lived till her ninetieth 
year, the following lines refer : 

" Here, too, a relic of primeval ways 

And statelier manners, mingled with the grace 
Of Israel, in the evening of her days 

Baptized at fourscore, strongest of her race." 

Miles received his Bachelor's degree from 
Mount St. Mary's College, Maryland, on June 
28, 1843, ^'^'^^ ^ f^w months later began the study 
of law in his native city, in the office of John H. 
B. Latrobe. On completing his legal studies, he 
formed a partnership with Edwin H. Webster, 



Introduction. 7 

who afterwards became a member of Congress. 
Miles found the practice of his profession uncon- 
genial and irksome. Some one has said, " No 
great love existed between them at first, and it 
pleased Heaven to diminish it as they got better 
acquainted." 

His first novel, " The Truce of God," was pub- 
lished as a serial about 1848. In 1849 ^is 
'' Loretto, or The Choice," won a prize offered 
by a Baltimore paper for the best serial story. 
The next year Edwin Forrest offered one thou- 
sand dollars for the best drama produced by 
American talent, and Miles' tragedy in five acts, 
entitled '' Mohammed," carried off the honors 
from a hundred competitors. In 1851 Mr. Miles 
became the bearer of certain diplomatic messages 
from President Fillmore to the Spanish Court at 
Madrid. In 1864 he visited Europe agam, and 
soon after his return he wrote " Glimpses of Tus- 
cany," which was published in 1868. His best 
known long poem, " Christine," appeared in 1866. 
His five-act blank-verse tragedy, ^' De Soto," was 
written for James E. Murdock, and was played 
by Murdock in 1851-52, and also by E. L. Daven- 



8 Introduction. 

port as late as 1855. But the supreme effort of 
Miles' literary life is his " Cromwell, a Tragedy," 
which remains in manuscript to this day, a monu- 
ment to unappreciated genius. 

Besides the works already mentioned, IMiles 
is the author of a charming little story, *' The 
Governess ; " the comedies, " Seiior Valiente," 
*' Mary's Birthday," " Abou-Hassan," and many 
others; also a long satirical poem, "Aladdin's 
Palace," and an unfinished series of critiques on 
Shakespeare. The only one of these as yet pub- 
lished, " A Study of Hamlet," has attracted 
much attention on account of the singular beauty 
of the language and the clear insight into the 
character of the Danish prince. 

In 1859 Miles accepted the chair of English 
Literature in his Alma Mater. On the 22d of 
February, of the same year, he married Miss 
Adeline Tiers. Soon he took up his residence 
at his beautiful country-seat near Emmitsburg, 
Md., to which he gave the name '' Thornbrook." 
" The house where he dwelt," writes one of his 
pupils,^ " has been unoccupied for many years, 

1 Thomas W. Kenney, M. D., LL. D., of Philadelphia. 



Introduction. 9 

and the once beautiful grounds and smiling gar- 
den are no longer cared for. Yet even now 
Thornbrook is a delightful spot, and one can im- 
agine how happy Mr. Miles' life must have been 
in so pleasant a home. A short distance from 
the main road, at the end of a little wood, we see 
the poet's handsome cottage gleaming through 
the trees. It stands in a small grove. Pine-trees 
and a few silver maples, together with thick 
bushes, almost hide it from sight. Back of the 
cottage are many fruit trees, a broken grape- 
arbor and a long-neglected garden. Here in his 
quiet home George H. Miles enjoyed the solitude 
which he needed and loved. 

His teachers were the delly woods and rills, 

The silence that is in the starry sky, 
The sleep that is among the lonely hills." 

Prof. George Henry Miles, poet, dramatist, 
novehst and critic, died at Thornbrook July 23, 
1 87 1. All that was mortal of him sleeps in the 
mountain churchyard, within a mortuary chapel 
which his own pen had consecrated to the 
Muses : — 



lO 



Introduction. 



" Holding the very summit of the slope, 
A pointed chapel, girt with evergreen 
And frailer foliage — still as hope — 

Watches the east for morning's earliest sheen : 
Within it slumbers one 
For whom the tears of unextinguished grief still run. 

" The sunset shadow of this chapel falls 

Upon a classmate's grave : a rare delight 
Laughed in his youth, but, one by one, the halls 
Of life were darkened, till, amid the night, 
A single star remained — 
Bright herald of the paradise by tears regained. 




THE POET S GRAVE. 

High in the bending trees the north wind sings, 
The shining chestnuts at my feet are rolled ; 

The shivering mountains, bare as bankrupt kings, 
Sit beggared of their purple and their gold : 

The naked plain below 
Sighs to the clouds, impatient of its robe of snow. 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 

Introduction 5 

Christine ^5 

Note i6 

The Castle of Miolan (From ist Canto) 17 

The Baron's Tale (From ist Canto) 19 

The Funeral Room (From 2d Canto) 27 

The Barons Tale — Con. (From 2d Canto). 30 

Pilate's Peak (Frofn 3rd Canto) 3^ 

The Prelude (From 4th Canto) 42 

The Tournament (From 4th Canto) 43 

Flight of Christine (From 4th Canto) 53 

The Resuscitation (From jth Canto) 63 

A Provencal Sonnet (From 5th Canto) 68 

The Knight's Song (From 5th Canto) 69 

Aladdin's Palace 73 

Inkermann 79 

Amin 95 

Egypt .' • 95 

The Soldier's Banquet Song 9^ 

Art Poems loi 

Note 102 

Raphael Sanzio 103 

San Sisto i ^7 

Note 120 

The Ivory Crucifix 121 

Minor Poems 129 

Note 130 

The Devil's Visit to 131 

An Ambrotype 132 

II 



12 Contents. 

Page. 

An Album Piece 133 

The Reverse 134 

Said the Rose 135 

The Albatross 140 

Beatrice 143 

Partings 147 

There was a time 148 

Manuscript Facsimile (From "Amin ") 149 

On the Death of Dr. 150 

Tragedies 153 

Notes 154 

Mohammed 155 

Author's Preface 155 

The Founding of Islam 158 

De Soto 172 

The Death of De Soto 172 

Cromwell 182 

The Execution of Charles 1 182 

Comedies 191 

Note 192 

Author's Preface (Sc}~ior Valicntc) 193 

Senor Valiente 195 

Mary's Birthday 199 

Abou Hassan 205 

Echo Song 210 

Essays, Orations, Etc 211 

Note 212 

A Study of Hamlet 213 

Reverence 221 

The Pilgrims 226 

Glimpses of Tuscany 229 

The Governess 232 

Loretto 246 

Sentences, Phrases, and Figures 252 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Page. 

George H. Miles (facing page) 2 

The Poet's Grave (on page) 10 

Flight of Christine (map page) 56 

The Santo Sudario (on page) 61 

Transfiguration (facing page) 104 

Sistine Madonna (facing page) 120 

Manuscript Facsimile (from "Amin ") 149 

Burial of De Soto (on page) 181 

Echo Song (from "A Picture of Innocence"). 210 



CHRISTINE. 



1 6 Christine. 



NOTE. 



" Christine " contains a story within a story, or a song 
within a song. The enveloping part carries one back to 
Palestine, at the beginning of the third Crusade, August, 
1 191. The inner part, which is the real "Christine," is 
a romance, in five cantos, connected with the first Cru- 
sade. The scene is laid in Southern France. (See map 
on page 56.) 

The poem is full of spirit and action. The Fourth 
Canto, which tells of the tournament and of the flight of 
Christine, is not surpassed in descriptive power or thrill- 
ing interest by any similar production in our language. 

The story of " Christine " proper concludes with a 
sonnet constructed after a form peculiar to Provence, 
where the sonnet originated. 



Christine. ^ 7 



THE CASTLE OF MIOLAN. 
(From First Canto.) 

Ye have heard of the Castle of Miolan 

And how it hath stood since time began, 

Midway to yon mountain's brow, 

Guarding the beautiful valley below : 

Its crest the clouds, its ancient feet 

Where the Arc and the Isere murmuring meet. 

Earth hath few lovelier scenes to show 

Than Miolan with its hundred halls. 

Its massive towers and bannered walls. 

Looming put through the vines and walnut woods 

That gladden its stately solitudes. 

And there might ye hear but yestermorn 
The loud halloo and the hunter's horn, 



1 8 Christine. 

The laugh of mailed men at play, 
The drinking bout and the roundelay. 
But now all is sternest silence there, 
Save the bell that calls to vesper prayer ; 
Save the ceaseless surge of a father's wail, 
And, hark ! ye may hear the Baron'-s Tale. 



Christine. ^9 



THE BARON'S TALE. 

(From First Canto.) 

" Come hither, Hermit ! — Yestermorn 
I had an only son, 
A gallant fair as e'er was born, 

A knight whose spurs were won 
In the red tide by Godfrey's side 
As Ascalon. 



" But yestermorn he came to me 
For blessing on his lance, 
And death and danger seemed to flee 

The joyance of his glance. 
For he would ride to win his Bride, 
Christine of France. 

" All sparkling in the sun he stood 
In mail of Milan dressed, 
A scarf, the gift of her he wooed, 



20 Christine. 

Lay lightly o'er his breast, 
x^s, with a clang, to horse he sprang 
With nodding crest. 

'* Gaily he grasped the stirrup cup 
Afoam with spicy ale, 
But as he took the goblet up 

Methought his cheek grew pale, 
And a shudder ran through the iron man 
And through his mail. 

" Oft had I seen him breast the shock 
Of squire or crowned king ; 
His front was firm as rooted rock 

When spears were shivering: 
I knew no blow could shake him so 
From living thing. 

" 'Twas something near akin to death 
That blanched and froze his cheek, 
Yet 'twas not death, for he had breath, 
And when I bade him speak, 



Christine. 2 ] 

Unto his breast his hand he pressed 
With one wild shriek. 

" The hand thus clasped upon his heart 
So sharply curbed the rein, 
Grey Caliph, rearing with a start, 

Went bounding o'er the plain, 
Away, away with echoing neigh 
And streaming mane. 

" After him sped the menial throng ; 
I stirred not in my fear ; 
Perchance I swooned, for it seemed not long 

Ere the race did reappear. 
And my son still led on his desert-bred, 
Grasping his spear. 

" Unchanged in look or limb, he came, 
He and his barb so fleet, 
His hand still on his heart, the same 

Stern bearing in his seat. 
And wheeling round with sudden bound 
Stopped at my feet. 



2 2 Christine. 

" And soon as ceased that wildering tramp, 
' What ails thee, boy ? ' I cried — 
Taking his hand all cliill and damp — 

'What means this fearful ride? 
Alight, alight, for lips so white 
Would scare a Bride ! ' 

" But sternly to his steed clove he, 
And answer made me none. 
I clasped him by his barbed knee 

And there I made my moan ; 
While icily he stared at me. 
At me alone. 

" A strange, unmeaning stare was that, 
And a page beside me said, 
' If ever corse in saddle sat, 
Our lord is certes sped ! ' 
But I smote the lad, for it drove me mad 
To think him dead. 

" What ! dead so young, — what ! lost so soon. 
My beautiful, my brave ! 



Christine. 23 

Sooner the sun should find at noon 

In central heaven a grave ! 
Sweet Jesu, no, it is not so 

When Thou canst save! 

" For was he dead and was he sped, 

When he could ride so well, 

So bravely bear his plumed head ? 

Or, was't some spirit fell 
In causeless wrath had crossed his path 
With fiendish spell? 

" Oh, Hermit, 'twas a cruel sight, 
And He, who loves to bless, 
Ne'er sent on son such bitter blight. 

On sire such sore distress. 
Such piteous pass, and I, alas, 
So powerless ! 

" They would have ta'en him from his horse 
The while I wept and prayed ; 
They would have lain him like a corse 



2 4 Christine. 

Upon a litter made 
. Of traversed spear and martial gear, 
But I forbade. 

" I gazed into his face again, 

I chafed his hand once more, 
I summoned him to speak, in vain — ■ 

He sat there as before. 
While the gallant Grey in dumb dismay 
His rider bore. 

" Full well, full well Grey Caliph then 
The horror seemed to know ; 
E'en deeper than my mailed men 

Methought he felt our woe ; 
For the barbed head of the desert-bred 
Was drooping low. 
***** 

" A sudden clang of armor rang, 
My boy lay on the sward, 
Up high in air Grey Caliph sprang, 



Christine. 25 

An instant fiercely pawed, 
Then trembling stood aghast and viewed 
His fallen lord. 

Then with the flash of fire away 

Like sunbeam o'er the plain, 
Away, away with echoing neigh 

And wildly waving mane, 
Away he sped, loose from his head 
The flying rein. 

I watched the steed from pass to pass 

Unto the welkin's rim ; 
I feared to turn my eyes, alas, 

To trust a look at him ; 
And when I turned, my temples burned 
And all grew dim. 



Sweet if such swoon could endless be, 

Yet speedily I woke 
And missed my boy : they showed him me 



26 Christine. 

Full length on bed of oak, 
Clad as 'twas meet in mail complete 
And sable cloak. 

" All of our race upon that bier 
Had rested one by one. 
I had seen my father lying there, 

And now there lay my son ! 
Ah ! my sick soul bled the while it said 
' Thy will be done ! ' 

* :K :i: * * 

*' I sent for thee, thou man of God, 
To watch with me to-night ; 
My boy still liveth, by the rood, 
Nor shall be funeral rite ! — 
But, Hermit, come : this is the room : 
There lies the Knight ! " 



Christine. 2 7 



THE FUNERAL ROOM. 

(From Second Canto.) 

They passed into an ancient hall 

With oaken arches spanned. 
Full many a shield hung on the wall, 

Full many a broken brand, 

And barbed spear and scimitar 

From Holy Land. 

And scarfs of dames of high degree 

With gold and jewels rich, 
And many a mouldered effigy 

In many a mouldering niche, 
Like grey sea shells whose crumbling cells 
Bestrew the beach. 

The sacred dead possessed the place. 

The silent cobweb wreathed 
The tombs where slept that warrior race, 

With swords forever sheathed : 



28 Christine. 

You seemed to share the very air 
Which they had breathed. 

Oh, darksome was that funeral room, 

Those oaken arches dim, 
The torchhght, struggHng through the gloom, 

Fell faint on effige grim. 
On dragon dread and carved head 
Of Cherubim. 



Of Cherubim fast by a shrine 
Whereon the last sad rite 

Was wont for all that ancient line. 
For dame and belted knight — 

A shrine of Moan which death alone 
Did ever light. 

But light not now that altar stone 
While hope of life remain, 

Though darksome be that altar lone. 
Unlit that funeral fane. 

Save by the rays cast by the blaze 
Of torches twain. 



Christine. 2 9 

Of torches twain at head and heel 

Of him who seemeth dead, 
Who sleepeth so well in his coat of steel, 

His cloak around him spread — 
The young Knight fair, who lieth there 
On oaken bed. 



One hand still fastened to his heart, 

The other on his lance. 
While through his eyelids, half apart. 

Life seemeth half to glance. 
'' Sweet youth awake, for Jesu's sake, 
From this strange trance ! " 



30 Christine, 



THE BARON'S TALE — CONTINUED. 

(From Second Canto.) 

Not yet ! " the Baron gasped, and sank 

As if beneath a blow, 
With Hps all writhing as they drank 

The dregs of deepest woe ; 
With eyes aglare, and scattered hair 
Tossed to and fro. 

So swings the leaf that lingers last 

When wintry tempests sweep, 
So reels when storms have stripped the mast 

The galley on the deep, 
So nods the snow on Eigher's brow 
Before the leap. 

Uncertain 'mid his tangled hair 
His palsied fingers stray, 



Christine. 

He smileth in his dumb despair 

Like a sick child at play, 
Though wet, I trow, with tears eno' 
That beard so grey. 

Oh, Hermit, lift him to your breast. 
There best his heart may bleed ; 

Since none but heaven can give him rest, 
Heaven's priest must meet his need : 

Dry that white beard, now wet and weird 
As pale sea-weed. 

Uprising slowly from the ground, 
With short and frequent breath. 

In aimless circles, round and round. 
The Baron tottereth 

With trailing feet, a mourner meet 
For house of death. 

Till, pausing by the shrine of Moan, 

He said, the while he wept. 
Here, Hermit, here mine only one, 



32 Christine. 

When all the castle slept, 
As maiden knight, o'er armor bright, 
His first watch kept. 

" This is the casque that first he wore, 
And this his virgin shield. 
This lance to his first tilt he bore, 
With this first took the field — 
How light, how lache to that huge ash 
He now doth wield ! 

'* This blade hath levelled at a blow 
The she-wolf in her den. 
With this red falchion he laid low 

The slippery Saracen. 
God ! will that hand, so near his brand, 
V Ne'er strike again? 

" Frown not on him, ye men of old, 
Whose glorious race is run; 
Frown not on him, my fathers bold, 
Though many the field ye won : 



Christine. 33 

His name and fate may with yours mate 
Though but begun ! 

" Receive him, ye departed brave, 
Unlock the gates of Hght, 
And range yourselves about his grave 

To hail a brother knight, 
Who never erred in deed or word 
Against the right! 

" But is he dead and is he sped 
Withouten scathe or scar? 
Why, Hermit, he hath often bled 

From sword and scimitar — 
I've seen him ride, wounds gaping wide, 
From war to war. 

" And hath a silent, viewless thing 
Laid danger's darling low, 
When youth and hope were on the wing 

And life in morning glow? 
Not yonder worm in winter's storm 
Perisheth so! 
3 



34 Christine. 

" Oh, Hermit, thou hast heard, I ween, 
Of trances long and deep, 
But, Hermit, hast thou ever seen 

That grim and stony sleep. 
And canst thou tell how long a spell 
Such slumbers keep? 

" Oh, be there naught to break the charm, 
To thaw this icy chain ; 
Hath Mother Church no word to warm 

These freezing lips again; 
Be holy prayer and balsams rare 
Alike in vain? . . . 

*' A curse on thy ill-omened head ; 
Man, bid me not despair ; 
Churl, say not that a Knight is dead 

When he can couch his spear; 
When he can ride — Monk, thou hast lied. 
He lives, I swear! 

" Up from that bier ! Boy, to thy feet ! 
Know'st not thy father's voice? 



Christine. . 35 

Thou ne'er hast disobeyed . . . is't meet 

A sire should summon thrice? 
By these grey hairs, by these salt tears, 
Awake, arise ! 

*' Ho, lover, to thy ladye flee. 
Dig deep the crimson spur; 
Sleep not 'twixt this lean monk and me 

When thou shouldst kneel to her ! 
Oh 'tis a sin, Christine to win 
And thou not stir ! 

" Ho, laggard, hear yon trumpet's note 
Go sounding to the skies, 
The lists are set, the banners float, 
Yon loud-mouthed herald cries, 
' Ride, gallant knights, Christine invites, 
Herself the prize ! ' 

'' Ho, craven, shun'st thou the melee. 
When she expects thy brand 
To prove to-day in fair tourney 
A title to her hand ? 



36 Christine. 

Up, dullard base, or by the mass 

I'll make thee stand ! " . . . 

Thrice strove he then to wrench apart 
Those fingers from the spear. 

Thrice strove to sever from the heart 
The hand that rested there ; 

Thrice strove in vain with frantic strain 
That shook the bier. 

Thrice with the dead the living strove, 

Their armor rang a peal. 
The sleeping knight he would not move 

Although the sire did reel: 
That stately corse defied all force. 
Stubborn as steel. 

" Ay, dead, dead, dead ! " the Baron cried ; 
" Dear Hermit, I did rave. 
O were we sleeping side by side ! . . . 

Good monk, I pardon crave 
For all I said. . . . Ay, he is dead, 
Pray heaven to save ! 



Christine. 37 

" Betake thee to thy orisons 
And let me while I may 
Rain kisses on these frozen cheeks 

Before they know decay. 
Leave me to weep and watch and keep 
The worm at bay. 

'* Thou wilt not spare thy prayers, I trust ; 
But name not now the grave — 
I'll w^atch him to the very dust ! . . . 

So, Hermit, to thy cave, 
Whilst here I cling lest creeping thing 
Insult the brave ! " 



38 Christine. 



PILATE'S PEAK. 

(From Third Canto.) 

Fronting the vine-clad Hermitage, — 

Its hoary turrets mossed with age, 

Its walls with flowers and grass o'ergrown, — 

A ruined Castle, throned so high 

Its battlements invade the sky, 
Looks down upon the rushing Rhone. 
From its tall summits you may see 
The sunward slopes of Cote Rotie 
With its red harvest's revelry ; 
While eastward, midway to the Alpine snows, 
Soar the sad cloisters of the Grande Chartreuse. 
And here, 'tis said, to hide his shame, 
The thrice accursed Pilate came ; 
And here the very rock is shown. 

Where, racked and riven with remorse, 

Mad with the memory of the Cross, 
He sprang and perished in the Rhone. 



Christine. 

Tis said that certain of his race 
Made this tall peak their dwelling place, 
And built them there this castle keep 
To mark the spot of Pilate's leap. 
Full many the tale of terror told 

At eve, with changing cheek, 
By maiden fair and stripling bold, 
Of these dark keepers of the height 
And, most of all, of the Wizard Knight, 

The Knight of Pilate's Peak. 
His was a name of terror known 

And feared through all Provence; 
Men breathed it in an undertone, 

With quailing eye askance. 
Till the good Dauphin of Vlenne, 

And Miolan's ancient Lord, 
One midnight stormed the robber den 

And gave them to the sword ; 
All save the Wizard Knight, who rose 
In a flame-wreath from his dazzled foes ; 
All save a child, with golden hair, 



39 



40 Christine. 

Whom the Lord of Miolan deigned to spare 

In ruth to womanhood. 
But who is he, with step of fate, 
Goes gloomily through the castle gate 

In the morning's virgin prime? 
Why scattereth he with frenzied hand 
The fierce flame of that burning brand, 

Chaunting an ancient rhyme? 
The eagle, scared from her blazing nest, 
Whirls with a scream round his sable crest. 
What muttereth he with demon smile. 
Shaking his mailed hand the while 

Toward the Chateau of La Sone, 
Where champing steed and bannered tent 
Gave token of goodly tournament, 

And the Golden Dolphin shone? 
" Woe to the last of the Dauphin's line. 
When the eagle shrieks and the red lights shine 

Round the towers of Pilate's Peak! 
Burn, beacon, burn ! " — and as he spoke 
From the ruined towers curled the pillared 
smoke, 



Christine. 41 

As the light flame leapt from the ancient oak 

And answered the eagle's shriek. 
Man and horse down the hillside sprang 
And a voice through the startled forest rang — 
" I ride, I ride to win my bride. 
Ho, Eblis ! to thy servant's side ; 
Thou hast sworn no foe 
Shall lay me low 
Till the dead in .arms against me ride." 

* * >K * * 

But hark ! the cry of the clamorous horn 
Smites the bright stillness of the morn. 
From moated wall, from festal hall. 
The banners beckon, the bugles call; 
Already flames, in the lists unrolled 
O'er the Dauphin's tent, the Dolphin gold. 
A hundred knights in armor glancing, 
Hurry afield with pennons dancing, 
Each with a vow to splinter a lance 
For Christine, the Lily of Provence. 



42 Christine. 



PRELUDE. 
(From Fourth Canto.) 

Amid the gleam of princely war 
Christine sat like the evening star, 
Pale in the sunset's pageant bright, 
A separate and sadder light. 
O bitter task 
To rear aloft that shining head, 
While round thee, cruel whisperers ask — 
Marry, what aileth the Bridegroom gay? 
The heralds have waited as long as they may, 
Yet never a sign of the gallant Grey. 
Is Miolan false or dead ? " 



Christine. 43 



THE TOURNAMENT. 
(From Fourth Canto.) 

The Dauphin eyed Christine askance: 
" We have tarried too long," quoth he ; 
'^ Doth the Savoyard fear the thrust of France ? 
By the Bride of Heaven, no laggard lance 
Shall ever have guard of thee ! " 

You could see the depths of the dark eyes shine 

And a glow on the marble cheek. 
As she whispered, " Woe to the Dauphin's line 
When the eagle shrieks and the red lights shine 
Round the towers of Pilate's Peak." 

She levelled her white hand toward the west. 

Where the omen beacon shone; 
And he saw the flame on the castle crest, 
And a livid glare light the mountain's breast 

Even down to the rushing Rhone. 



44 Christine. 

Never braver lord in all the land 

Than that Dauphin true and tried ; 
But the rein half fell from his palsied hand 
And his fingers worked at the jewelled brand 
That shook in its sheath at his side. 



For it came with a curse from earliest time, 

It was carved on his father's halls, 
It had haunted him ever from clime to clime, 
And at last the red light of the ancient rhyme 
Is burning on Pilate's walls ! 

Yet warrior-like beneath his feet 

Trampling the sudden fear, 
He cried, " Let thy lover's foot be fleet — 
If thy Savoyard would wed thee, sweet, 

By Saint Mark, he were better here ! 

" For I know by yon light there is danger near. 
And I swear by the Holy Shrine, 



Christine. 45 

Be it virgin spear or Miolan's heir, 
The victor to-day shall win and wear 
This menaced daughter of mine ! " 

The lists are aflame with the gold and steel 

Of knights in their proud array, 
And gong and tymbalon chiming peal 
As forward the glittering squadrons wheel 
To the jubilant courser's neigh. 

The Dauphin sprang to the maiden's side. 

And thrice aloud cried he, 
' Ride, gallants all, for beauty ride, 
Christine herself is the victor's bride, 
Whoever the victor be ! " 

And thrice the heralds cried it aloud, 

While a wondering whisper ran 
From the central lists to the circling crowd, 
For all knew the virgin hand was vowed 
To the heir of Miolan. 



46 Christine. 

Quick at the Dauphin's pUghtecl word 

Full many an eye flashed fire, 
Full many a knight took a truer sword, 
Tried buckle and girth, and many a lord 
Chose a stouter lance from his squire. 

Back to the barrier's measured bound 

Each gallant speedeth away ; 
Then, forward fast to the trumpet's sound, 
A hundred horsemen shake the ground 

And meet in the mad melee. 

Crimson the spur and crimson the spear, 

The blood of the brave flo\vs fast; 
But Christine is deaf to the dying prayer, 
Blind to the dying eyes that glare 
On her as they look their last. 

She sees but a Black Knight striking so well 

That the bravest shun his path; 
His name or his nation none may tell. 



Christine. 47 

But wherever he struck a victim fell 
At the feet of that shape of wrath. 

"'Fore God," quoth the Dauphin, "that un- 
known sword 
Is making a merry day ! " 
But where, oh where is the Savoyard, 
For low in the slime of that trampled sward 
Lie the flower of the Dauphinee ! 



And the victor stranger rideth alone, 

Wiping his bloody blade ; 
And now that to meet him there is none. 
Now that the warrior work is done, 

He moveth toward the maid. 

Sternly, as if he came to kill. 

Toward the damsel he turneth his rein; 
His trumpet sounding a challenge shrill. 
While the fatal lists of La Sone are still 

As he paces the purple plain. 



\ Christine. 

A hollow voice through the visor cried, 
" Mount to the crupper with me. 
Mount, Ladye, mount to thy master's side, 
For 'tis said and 'tis sworn thou shalt be the 
Bride 
Of the victor, whoever he be." 



At sound of that voice a sudden flame 
Shot out from the Dauphin's eyes, 

And he said, " Sir Knight, ere we grant thy 
claim, 

Let us see the face, let us hear the name, 
Of the gallant who winneth the prize." 



" 'Tis a name you know and a face you fear," 

The Wizard Knight began ; 
" Or hast thou forgotten that midnight drear, 
When my sleeping fathers felt the spear 

Of Vienna and Miolan? 



Christine. 49 

" Ay, quiver and quail in thy coat of mail, 

For hark to the eagle's shriek ; 
See the red light burns for the coming bale ! " 
And all knew as he lifted his aventayle 

The Knight of Pilate's Peak. 

From the heart of the mass rose a cry of wrath 

As they sprang at the shape abhorred, 
But he swept the foremost from his path, 
And the rest fell back from the fatal swath 
Of that darkly dripping sword. 

But up rose the Dauphin brave and bold, 

And strode out upon the green, 
And quoth he, " Foul fiend, if my purpose hold, 
By my halidome, tho' I'm passing old. 

We'll splinter a lance for Christine. 

*' Since her lovers are low or recreant, 
Her champion shall be her sire ; 



5© Christine. 

So get a fresh lance from yonder tent, 
For though my vigor be something spent, 
I fear neither thee nor thy fire ! " 

Swift to the stirrup the Dauphin he sprang, 
The bravest and best of his race : 

No bugle blast for the combat rang ; 

Save the clattering hoof and the armor clang, 
All was still as each rode to his place. 

With the crash of an April avalanche 

They meet in that merciless tilt ; 
Back went each steed with shivering haunch. 
Back to the croup bent each rider staunch, 
Shivered each spear to the hilt. 

Thrice flies the Baron's battle-axe round 

The Wizard's sable crest ; 
But the coal-black steed, with a sudden bound, 
Hurled the old Crusader to the ground. 

And stamped on his mailed breast. 



Christine. 



51 



Thrice by the vengeful war-horse spurned, 

Lowly the Dauphin lies; 
While the Black Knight laughed as again he 

turned 
Toward the lost Christine, and his visor burned 

As he gazed at his beautiful prize. 

Her doom you might r.ead in that gloating 
stare, 

But no fear in the maid can you see ; 
Nor is it the calm of a dumb despair, 
For hope sits aglow on her forehead fair. 

And she murmurs, " At last — it is he! " 

Proudly the maiden hath sprung from her seat, 

Proudly she glanceth around, 
One hand on her bosom to stay its beat, 
For hark ! there's a sound like the flying feet 

Of a courser, bound after bound. 

Clearing the lists with a leopard-like spring, 
Plunging at top of his speed. 



5 2 Christine. 

Swift o'er the ground as a bird on the wing, 
There bursts, all afoam, through the wonder- 
ing ring, 
A gallant but riderless steed. 

Arrow-like, straight to the maiden he sped. 

With a long, loud, tremulous neigh, 
The rein flying loose round his glorious head. 
While all whisper again, " Is the Savoyard 
dead? " 
As they gaze at the riderless Grey. 

One sharp, swift pang thro' the virgin heart, 

One wildering cry of woe. 
Then fleeter than dove to her calling nest, 
Lighter than chamois on Malaval's crest, 

She leaps to the saddle bow. 



Christine. 53 



THE FLIGHT OF CHRISTINE. 

(From Fourth Canto.) 

Away ! " He knew the sweet voice ; away, 

With never a look behind ; 
Away, away, with echoing neigh 
And streaming mane, goes the gallant Grey, 

Like an eagle before the wind. 

They have cleared the lists, they have passed 
her bower, 

And still they are thundering on ; 
They are over the bridge — another hour, 
A league behind them the Leaning Tower 

And the spires of Saint Antoine. 

Away, away in their wild career 

Past the slopes of Mont Surjeu; 
Thrice have they swum the swift Isere, 
And firm and clear in the purple air 

Soars the Grand Som full in view. 



54 Christine. 

Rough is their path and sternly steep, 

Yet halting never a whit, 
Onward the terrible pace they keep, 
While the good Grey, breathing free and deep, 

Steadily strains at the bit. 

They have left the lands where the tall hemp 
springs, 
Where the clover bends to the bee ; 
They have left the hills where the red vine 

flings 
Her clustered curls of a thousand rings 
Round the arms of the mulberry tree. 

They have left the lands where the walnut lines 

The roads, and the chestnuts blow ; 
Beneath them the thread of the cataract shines, 
Around them the plumes of the warrior pines, 
Above them the rock and the snow. 

Thick on his shoulders the foam flakes lay. 
Fast the big drops roll from his chest. 



Christine. 5 5 

Yet on, ever on, goes the gallant Grey, 
Bearing the maiden as smoothly as spray 
Asleep on the ocean's breast. 

Onward and upward, bound after bound, 

By Bruno's Bridge he goes ; 
And now they are treading holy ground, 
For the feet of her flying Caliph sound 

By the cells of the Grande Chartreuse. 

Around them the darkling cloisters frown, 
The sun in the valley hath sunk ; 

When right in her path, lo ! the long white 
gown. 

The withered face and the shaven crown 
And the shrivelled hand of a monk. 

A light like a glittering halo played 
Round the brow of the holy man ; 
With lifted finger her course he stayed. 
All is not well," the pale lips said, 
" With the heir of Miolan. 



Christine. 5 7 

But in Chambery hangs a relic rare 

Over the altar stone : 
Take it, and speed to thy Bridegroom's bier; 
If the Sacristan question who sent thee there, 

Say, ' Bruno, the Monk of Cologne.' " 

She bent to the mane while the cross he signed 

Thrice o'er the suppliant head : 
Away with thee, child ! " and away like the 

wind 
She went, with a startled glance behind. 

For she heard an ominous tread. 

The moon is up, 'tis a glorious night, 

They are leaving the rock and the snow, 
Mont Blanc is before her, phantom white, 
While the swift Isere, with its line of light. 
Cleaves the heart of the valley below. 

But hark to the challenge, " Who rideth 

alone?" — 
" O warder, bid me not wait ! — 



58 Christine. 

My lover lies dead and the Dauphin o'er- 
thrown — 

A message I bear from the Monk of Co- 
logne " — 
And she swept thro' Chambery's gate. 

The Sacristan kneeleth in midnight prayer 
By Chambery's altar stone. 
" What meaneth this haste, my daughter fair ? ' 
She stooped and murmured in his ear 
The name of the Monk of Cologne. 

Slowly he took from its jewelled case 
A kerchief that sparkled like snow, 
And the Minster shone like a lighted vase 
As the deacon unveiled the gleaming face 
Of the Santo Sudario. 

A prayer, a tear, and to saddle she springs, 

Clasping the relic bright ; 
Away, awa}^, for the fell hoof rings 



Christine. 



59 



Down the hillside behind her — God give her 

wings ! 
The fiend and his horse are in sight. 

On, on, the gorge of the Doriat's won, 
She is nearing her Savoyard's home, 
By the grand old road where the warrior son 
Of Hamilcar swept with his legions dun. 
On his mission of hatred to Rome. 

The ancient oaks seem to rock and reel 

As the forest rushes by her, 
But nearer cometh the clash of steel, 
And nearer falleth the fatal heel, 

With its flickering trail of fire. 

Then first her hopeful heart grew sick 

'Neath its load of love and fear, 
For the Grey is bi*eathing faint and quick, 
And his nostrils burn, and the drops fall thick 

From the point of each drooping ear. 



6o Christine. 

His glorious neck hath lost its pride, 
His back fails beneath her weight, 
While steadily gaining, stride by stride, 
The Black Knight thunders to her side 
Heaven, must she meet her fate? 



She shook the loose rein o'er the trembling 
head, 
She laid her soft hand on his mane, 
She called him her Caliph, her desert-bred, 
She named the sweet springs where the palm 
trees spread 
Their arms o'er the burning plain. 

But the Grey looked back and sadly scanned 

The maid with his earnest eyes — 
A moment more and her cheek is fanned 
By the black steed's breath, and the demon 
hand 
Stretches out for the virgin prize. 



Christine, 



6i 




But she calls on Christ, and the kerchief white 

Waves full in the face of her foe : 
Back with an oath reeled the Wizard Knight 



62 Christine. 

As his steed crouched low in tne wondrous 
light 
Of the Santo Siidario. 

Blinded they halt while the maiden hies, 
The murmuring Arc she can hear, 

And, lo ! like a cloud on the shining skies. 

Atop of yon perilous precipice, 
The castle of Miolan's Heir. 

" Fail not, my steed ! " — Round her Caliph's 
head 
The relic shines like the sun : 
Leap after leap up the spiral steep. 
He speeds to his master's castle keep, 
And his glorious race is won. 



Christine. ^3 



THE RESUSCITATION. 
(From Fifth Canto.) 

" Hither, hither, thou mailed man 

With those woman's tears in thine eyes, 
With thy brawny cheeks all wet and wan, 
Show me the heir of Miolan, 

Lead where my Bridegroom lies." 

And he led her on with a sullen tread, 

That fell like a muffled groan, 
Through halls as silent as the dead, 
'Neath long grey arches overhead. 

Till they came to the shrine of Moan. 

What greets her there by the torches' glare? 

In vain hath the mass been said ! 
Low kneels the Hermit in silent prayer, 
Low kneels the Hermit in silent prayer. 

Between them the mighty dead. 



64 Christine. 

No tear she shed, no word she spoke, 

But gliding up to the bier, 
She took her stand by the bed of oak 
Where her Savoyard lay in his sable cloak, 

His hand still fast on his spear. 

She bent her burning cheek to his 

And rested it there awhile, 
Then touched his lips with a lingering kiss, 
And whispered him thrice, " My love, arise, 

I have come for thee many a mile ! " 

The man of God and the ancient Knight 

Arose in tremulous awe ; 
She was so beautiful, so bright. 
So spirit-like in her bridal white, 
It seemed in the dim funereal light 

'Twas an angel that they saw. 

" Thro' forest fell, o'er mount and dell, 
Like the falcon, hither I've flown. 
For I knew that a fiend was loose from hell, 



Christine. 65 

And I bear a token to break this spell 
From Bruno, the Monk of Cologne. 

=' Dost thou know it, love? When fire and sword 

Flamed round the Holy Shrine, 
It was won by thee from the Paynim horde, 
It was brought by thee to Bruno's guard, 

A gift from Palestine. 

" Wake, wake, my love ! In the name of Grace, 

That hath known our uttermost woe, 

Lo! this thorn-crowned brow on thine I 

place!" [face 

And, once more revealed, shone the wondrous 

Of the Santo Sndario. 

At once over all that ancient hall 

There went a luminous beam ; 
Heaven's deepest radiance seemed to fall, 
The helmets shine on the shining wall, 

And the faded banners gleam. 

And the chime of hidden cymbals rings 
To the song of a cherub choir ; 
5 



66 Christine. 

Each altar angel waves his wings, 
And the flame of each altar taper springs 
Aloft in a luminous spire. 

And over the face of the youth there broke 

A smile both stern and sweet ; 
Slowly he turned on the bed of oak, 
And proudly folding his sable cloak 

Around him, sprang to his feet. 

Back shrank the sire, half terrified, 

Both he and the Hermit, I ween; 
But she — she is fast to her Savoyard's side, 
A poet's dream, a warrior's bride. 
His beautiful Christine. 

Her hair's dark tangles all astray 

Adown her back and breast ; 
The print of the rein on her hand still lay, 
The foam flakes of the gallant Grey 

Scarce dry on her heaving breast. 

She told the dark tale and how she spurred 
From the Knight of Pilate's Peak ; 



Christine. 67 

You scarce would think the Bridegroom heard, 
Save that the mighty lance-head stirred, 
Save for the flush in his cheek ; 

Save that his gauntlet clasped her hair — 

And oh, the look that swept 
Between them ! — all the radiant air 
Grew holier — it was like a prayer — 

And they who saw it wept. 

E'en the lights on the altar brighter grew 

In the gleam of that heavenly gaze ; 
The cherub music fell soft as (lew, 
The breath of the censer seemed sweeter, too, 
The torches mellowed their requiem hue. 
And burnt with a bridal blaze. 

And the Baron clasps his son with a cry 

Of joy as his sorrows cease; 
While the Hermit, wrapt in his Rosary, 
Feels that the world beneath the sky 

Hath yet its planet of peace. 



68 Christine. 



A PROVENCAL SONNET. 
(From Fifth Canto.) 
When the moon rose o'er lordly Miolan 

That night, she wondered at those ancient 

walls : 
Bright tapers flashing from a hundred halls 
Lit all the mountain — liveried vassals ran 
Trailing from bower to bower the wine-cup, 

wreathed 
With festal roses — viewless music breathed 
A minstrel melody that fell as falls [laughed, 

The dew, less heard than felt; and maidens 
Aiming their curls at swarthy men who quaffed 
Brimmed beakers to the newly wed : while some 
Old henchmen, lolling on the court-yard green 
Over their squandered Cyprus, vowed between 
Their cups, " there was no pair in Christendom 
To match their Savoyard and his Christine ! " 



CJiristine. 69 



THE KNIGHTS SONG. 
(From Fifth Canto.) 

And art thou, art thoii dead ? — 
Thou with front that might defy 
The gathered thunders of the sky, 
Thou before whose fearless eye 

All death and danger fled ! 

My Khalif, hast thou sped 
Homeward where the palm-trees' feet 
Bathe in hidden fountains sweet, 
Where first we met as lovers meet, 

My own, my desert-bred ! 

Thy back has been my home; 
And, bending o'er thy flying neck. 
Its white mane waving without speck, 
I seemed to tread the galley's deck, 

And cleave the ocean's foam. 



70 Christine. 

Since first I felt tliy heart 
Proudly surging 'neath my knee, 
As earthquakes heave beneath the sea, 
Brothers in the field were we; 

And must we, can we part ? 

To match thee there was none ! 
' The wind was laggard to thy speed : 
O God, there is no deeper need 
Than warrior's parted from his steed 

When years have made them one. 

And shall I never more 
Answer thy laugh amid the clash 
Of battle, see thee meet the flash 
Of spears with the proud, pauseless dash 

Of billows on the shore? 

And all our victor war. 
And all the honors men call mine, 
Were thine, thou voiceless warrior, thine 
My task was but to touch the rein — 

There needed nothing more. 



Christine. 71 

Worst danger had no sting 
For thee, and coward peace no charm ; 
Amid red havoc's worst alarm 
Thy swoop as firm as through the storm 

The eagle's iron wing. 

more than man to me ! 

Thy neigh outsoared the trumpet's tone, 
Thy back was better than a throne. 
There was no human thing save one 

1 loved as well as thee ! 

O Knighthood's truest friend ! 
Brave heart by every danger tried, 
Proud crest by conquest glorified, 
Swift saviour of my menaced Bride, 

Is this, is this the end ? — 

Thrice honored be thy grave ! 
Wherever knightly deed is sung. 
Wherever minstrel harp is strung. 
There, too, thy praise shall sound among 

The beauteous and the brave. 



7 2 Christine. 

And thou shalt slumber deep 
Beneath our chapel's cypress sheen; 
And there thy lord and his Christine 
Full oft shall watch at morn and e'en 

Around their Khalif's sleep. 

There shalt thou wait for me 
Until the funeral bell shall ring, 
Until the funeral censer swing, 
For I would ride to meet my King, 

My stainless steed, with thee! 



Alaci ill's Palace. 73 



ALADDIN'S PALACE.i 



Aladdin's Palace, in a single night, 

From base to summit rose ere morning light, 

A pillared mass of porphyry and gold, 

Gem sown on gem, and silk o'er silk unrolled ; 

So from the dust our young Republic springs. 

Before the dazzled eyes of Eastern Kings. 

Not like old Rome, slow spreading into state, 

The century that freed, beholds us great, 

Sees our broad empire belt the western world, 

From main to main our starry flag unfurled ; 

Sees in each port where Albion's sea kings trail 

Their purple plumes, Columbia's snowy sail. 

Three deep the loaded deck our long wharves 

line, 
Three deep on buoyant hoops fast flounces shine. 



1 This poem, which contains in all about three hundred and fifty lines, 
was read by its author at a celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the 
founding of Mt. St. Mary's College. Rarely have the foibles and follies 
of our national life met with a more powerful presentation or a more 
scathing criticism. 



74 Aladdin's Palace. 

While thrice three-story brown stone proudly tells 
The tale of Mammon's modern miracles, 
Marking full fifty places in a square 
Where the born beggar dies the Millionaire. 

But yet remember, glorious as we are, 
Aladdin's Genie left one window bare; 
And we, perchance, upon a close review. 
May find our Palace lights unfinished too, — 
Some slighted panel in the stately hall. 
Some broidered hangings stinted on the wall. 
Nay, e'en some jewels gone, that graced us when 
All men were free here — even gentlemen. 

i{; ^ ^ ;!; >ic 

Qf all the slaves in social bondage nursed, 
Pater-familias stands supremely first : 
Proud of his bondage, tickled with his chains, 
The parent cringes while the stripling reigns. 
Down with the Dotard ! consecrate the Boy ! 
Since Age must suffer, let bright Youth enjoy. 
Drink morning in ! — old eyes were meant to 
wake ; 



Aladdin's Palace. 75 

Shake hands with ruin! — old hearts never 

break. 
Welcome the worst — 'tis but to close the door 
And pack the outlaw to some College-Cure. 
Alas! the tutor apes the parent fool, 
The idle birch hangs rotting in the school. 
Touch the young tyrant — like Olympian Jove 
The avenging sire defends his injured love; 
Clutches a cowhide, contemplates a suit, 
Talks wildly of a martyr and a brute. 
The worst disgrace his free-born son can know 
Is not to merit, but receive a blow. 

jK * ;1: * * ^ 

Your boy secure, what next ? Go home and rear 
That up-town palace? — Why, you're never 
there. 

Down by the docks your home is o'er the desk 
From morn till night, curled like an arabesque, 
Spinning the rich cocoon for child and wife. 
Though, like the worm, the tribute cost your life. 
Crawl home at midnight, to the basement go, 



76 Aladdin's Palace. 

Hug the lit fender, toast the sUppered toe ; 
One well-earned moment rest the throbbing head, 
Though all the ceiling own the waltz's tread. 
Or dare the ballroom, you'll not spoil the feast, 
'Tis the old story — Beauty and the Beast. 

^ -i* jjc ^ ^ ^ 

Better be dead than ope those honest eyes 
To half your marble mansion's mysteries. 
Press your lone pillow, scheme to-morrow's pelf, 
Your daughter, trust her, can protect herself: 
Dread neither foreign Count nor native Fool, 
Her heart was buried at a Boarding School. 

5i= * * 5|: 5i= * 

From private morals pass to pubHc taste ; 

One jewel missing, can the next be paste? 

A race of readers, we can surely claim 

A dozen writers with a world-wide name, — 

One drama that can hold the stage a season. 

Two actors that confound not rant with reason, — 

A minstrel equal to an average air. 

An artist that has brains as well as hair ? 



Aladdin's Palace. 77 

Alas ! the river where the milHons drink 
Flows from a Helicon of tainted ink, 
Lower and lower the darkening stream descends, 
Till, lost in filth, the sacred fountain ends. 
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 

Kings rule the East, the Merchant rules the West. 
Save round his hearth, supreme his high behest. 
For him the captive lightning rides the main, 
For him rent mountains hide the creaming train. 
For him the placer spreads its golden sands, 
The steamer pants, the spicy sail expands ; 
For him the quarry splits the moaning hill, 
For him Laborde imports her newest trill. 
Submissive science smooths his lordly path, 
States court his nod and Senates dread his wrath. 
Erect, undaunted, eager, active, brisk, 
A front for ruin, nerve for any risk ; 
Shy of the snare, impatient of the chance, 
The world a chess-board 'neath his eagle glance, 
Armed with a Ledger — presto pass — he carves 
And spends ten fortunes where a genius starves. 



78 Aladdin's Palace. 

No robber knight that ever drove a-field 

Bore braver heart beneath his dinted shield. 

Atilt with fortune, if he win the prize, 

The turnpike trembles, marble cleaves the skies. 



O land of Lads, and Liberty, and Dollars ! 
A Nation first in schools and last in scholars ! 
Where few are ignorant, yet none excel. 
Whose peasants read, whose statesmen scarcely 

spell ; 
Of what avail that science light the way, 
When dwindling Senates totter to decay?" 



Of what avail the boast of steam and cable, 
If doomed to grovel 'neath the curse of Babel ? 
Low droops our Eagle's eye to find us still 
Cowed 'neath his wing — by Albion's gray-goose 

quill. 
Why boast of Britain foiled on Bunker crest, 
Her pen still rules the Rebel of the West. 



Inkcrmann. 79 



INKERMANN.^ 



In marble Sebastopol 

The bells to chapel call: 
Our outposts hear the chanting 

Of monks within the wall. 
Why meet they there, with psalm and 
prayer ? — 

'Tis some high festival. 
By the old Achaian ruin 

Why groan those heavy wheels ? 
Some forage-freighted convoy 

Toward the leaguered city steals. 
Sleep ! — will the serfs twice routed 

Dare the freeman's steel again ? 
Will the slaves we stormed from Alma 

Beard the lion in his den ? 



One of the principal battles of the Crimean War, fought Nov. 5. 1854. 



8o Inkermann. 



'Tis a drizzling Sabbath daybreak, 

Cheerless rings the reveille, 
Through the shroudlike mists around us 

Not a stone's throw can we see : 
Feebly up the clouded welkin 

Toils the morning bleak and gray, 
Dim as twilight in October, 

Dawns that dark and dismal day. 
The camp once more is sounding, 

Slowly putting on its strength. 
As a boa, starved from torpor. 

Half uncoils its lazy length. 
Some are drying their damp muskets. 

Others gloss the rusted steel, 
Some are crouching o'er the watch-fires 

At the hurried matin meal : 
Some are bending o'er their Bibles, 

Others bid the beads of Rome, 
Many, still unwaken'd, hearken 

To the Sabbath bells of home. 



Inker mann. 8i 

The mountain and the valley 

With the hoary haze are white, 
Sea and river, friend and foeman. 

Town and trench are hid from sight : 
And the camp itself so softly 

With the snowy mist is blent, 
Scarce the waving of the canvas 

Shows the outline of the tent. 

Hark, the rifle's hawkhke whistle! 

But we stir not for the din, 
Till with sullen step the pickets 

From the hills are driven in, — 
Till the river seemed to thunder 

Through its rocky pass below. 
And a voice ran through the army, 
" Up to arms ! — it is the foe ! " 
Up with the Red Cross banner, 

Out with the victor steel, 
" Up to battle," the drums rattle, 

" Form and front," the bugles peal. — 



S2 Inhcrmann. 

From the tents and from the trenches, 

From the ramparts, from the mine, 
We are groping for the bayonet. 

We are straggHng into Hne ; 
Half attired and half accoutred. 

Spur the officers headlong, 
And the men from slumber starting, 

Round their colors fiercely throng. 
Then the lit artillery's earthquake 

Shook the hills beyond the gorge — 
Mute were then a thousand hammers 

Smiting hard the sounding forge. 
Full upon us comes the ruin, — 

They have ranged the very spot, — 
Purple glares the sod already. 

As the storm falls fast and hot, 
At our feet the earth foams spray-like 

'Neath the tempest of their shot. 

Crouched like caged and fretted lion, 
For the unseen foe we glare, — 

Not a bayonet, not a sabre 
Through the rolling mists appear. 



Inkennaiin. ^3 

Yet full sure the slaves are on us, 

For along the river's bed 
Tolls the low and measured thunder 

Of a mighty army's tread. 
The hearts beneath our bosoms 

Swell high as they would burst, 
We know not what is coming, 

But we nerve us for the worst : 
Fast our shoulders grow together, 

Firm beneath that iron hail. 
The thin red line is forming. 

That was never known to quail. 
Up from the slopes beneath us 

Nearer thrills the muffled hum, 
They are stepping to the onset. 

Without trumpet, without drum, 
And we clutch our pieces tighter,— 
Let them come ! 

The fog before us deepens : — 

Like a dark spot in a storm. 
Along the mist-wreathed ridges. 

Their crowded columns form : 



84 Inkermann. 

The helmets and the gray-coats 

Scarce pistol-shot ahead, — 
They are on us — let us at them — 

Unavenged we have bled! 
Steady! The eager rifle 

Is warming at our cheeks ; 
Yon column's head is melting 

As the levelled minie speaks. 
Forward, forward, form and forward ! 

Fast as floods through river sluice. 
The yeomanry of England 

On the Muscovite are loose. 
What, bide they there to meet us, 

That phalanx of gray rock? 
In vain ! No human bulwark 

Can breast the coming shock. 
At them — on them — o'er them — through 
them, 

The Red Line thunders still ; 
A cheer, a charge, a struggle, 

And we sweep them from the hill. 



Inkermamu 85 

Not a man had we left living 

Of the masses marshalled there, 
But their siege-guns in the gorges 

Stay our conquering career. 
Then, as we breathe from slaughter, 

And ere we close our ranks. 
The foe, one column routed, 

Hurls a fresh one on our flanks. 
Unappalled and unexhausted. 

We welcome the new war. 
Though like locusts in midsummer 

Swarm the legions of the Czar. 
Fifty thousand men are on us, 

Scarce a tithe of them are we, — 
Well might they swear to drive us 

Ere nightfall to the sea. 
Yet, St. George for merry England ! 

A volley, and we close, 
'Neath the martyr cross of bayonets. 

Redder yet the Red Line grows. 



86 Inkermann. 

Tliese are not the men of Alma, 

Who are now so well at work ; 
On the Danube, at Silistria, 

They have schooled them 'gainst the 
Turk; 
O'er the mountains of Circassia 

Their black eagles they have borne, 
And the children of their High Priest 

Lead the stern fanatics on. 
Point to point and breast to bosom. 

Hand to hand we madly clinch, 
And the ground we win upon them 

Is disputed inch by inch. 
The warrior blood of Britain 

Never rained so fast a tide, 
Man and captain fall together, 

Peer and peasant, side by side. 
We have routed thrice our number, 

Still their front looms thrice as vast, 
While our line is thinned and jaded 

And our men are falling fast. 



Inkermann. 87 

Upon them with the bayonet ! — 

Our powder waxes scant — 
What more with foe so near him 

Does British soldier want? 

Once more — once more, borne backward, 

Their stubborn legions fly, 
And we saw our brave commander, 

With his staff, come riding by ; 
Calmly he dared the danger, 

But a gloom was in his eye, 
For the mounds of his dead soldiers 

Lay around him thick and high. 
God knows his thought ! — It might be 

Of other mounds, I ween, — 
Of parapets, which, mounted, 

Such havoc had not been. 
But in brunt of battle ever 

Was the Saxon bosom bare. 
So we hailed him, as he passed us. 

With a hearty English cheer ; 



88 Inkermann. 

And as the nobles round him 

Were falHng, did we pray, 
That his hero Hfe amid the strife, 

Might be spared to us that day. 
O dark the cloud that rested 

On our chieftain's anxious brow : 
He has staked him all on the Spartan wall 

It must not fail him now ! 

Then, as waveless in the tempest 

Broods the white wing of a gull. 
O'er the hurricane of battle 

Swept a momentary lull. 
Countless lay the dead and dying, 

Few and faint the living stood, 
Every blade of grass beneath us 

Had its drop of hero blood. 
To our knees the stiffening bodies 

Of our fallen comrades rose. 
But higher, deeper, thicker, 

Lay the holocaust of foes. 



Inkermann, • 

And so fast the gore of Russia 

From the British bayonet runs, 
TrickHng down our dinted rifles, 

That our hands shp on our guns. 
Far along the scarlet ridges 

Looming dim through mist and smoke, 
In scattered groups, divided 

By coppice and dwarfed oak. 
Rests the remnant of our army. 

Rests each motley regiment, 
Coldstream, Fusileer, and Ranger, 

Line, and Guard together blent,— 
To the charge still sternly leaning, 

Undismayed, undaunted still. 
Grimly frowning o'er the valley. 

Proven masters of the hill. 
A wind gust from the mountain 
Swept the driving rack away, 
And we saw our battling brothers 
For the first time that dark day. 
But as up the white shroud drifted. 



go Inkermann. 

St. George, what sight beneath ! — 
'Twas as when the veil is Hfted 

From the stony face of death. 
Right before us, right beneath us. 

Right around us, everywhere, 
The fresh hordes of the Despot 

On flank and center bear : 
Around us and about us 

The armed torrent rolls. 
As around a foundering galley 

Glance the fins of bristling shoals. 
O never, England, never. 

Though aye outnumbered sore. 
Has thy world-encountering banner 

Faced such fearful odds before ! 

On they come, like crested breakers 
That would whelm us in their wrath, 

Or the winged flame of prairies 
Whirling stubble from its path. 

But with cheer as stout as ever 



Inkermann. 91 

To the charge again we reel, 
Again we mow before us 

Those harvests of stiff steel. 
Too few, alas ! the living 

These hydra hosts to stem. 
But our comrades lie around us. 

We can sleep at last with them. 
Rally, Britons, round your colors, 

And if no succor near, 
Then for God, our Queen, our country. 

Let us proudly perish here ! 
Each hand and foot grows firmer 

As they yell their demon cry, 
Each soldier's glance grows brighter 

As his last stern task draws nigh ; 
By the dead of Balaklava 

We will show them how to die! . . . 

Heard ye not that tramp behind us? . . . 

If a foeman come that way. 
We may make one charge to venge us. 

And then look our last of dav. 



92 Inkermann. 

As the tiger from the jungle, 

On the bounding column comes; 
We can hear the footfall ringing, 

To the stern roll of their drums ; 
We can hear their billowy surging, 

As up the hill they pant, — 
O God ! how sweetly sounded 

The well-known "' En avant! " 
With their golden eagles soaring, 

Bloodless lips and falcon glance, 
Radiant with the light of battle. 

Came the chivalry of France. 
Ah ! full well, full well we knew them, 

Our bearded, bold allies, 
All Austerlitz seemed shining 

Its sunlight from their eyes. 
Round their bright array dividing, 

We gave them passage large. 
For we knew no line then living, 

Could face that fiery charge. 
One breathing space they halted — 



Inker man n. 93 

One volley rent the sky, — 
Then the pas de charge thrills heavenward 
" Vive VEmpereur! " the cry. 
Right for the heart of Russia 

Cleave the swart Gallic braves, 
The panthers of Alma, 

The leopard-limbed Zouaves. 
The cheer of rescued Britain 

One moment thundered forth. 
The next — we trample with them 

The pale hordes of the North. 
Ye that have seen the lightning 

Through the crashing forest go, 
Would stand aghast, to see how fast 

We lay their legions low. 
They shrink — they sway — they falter — 

On, on ! — no quarter then ! 
Nor human hand, nor Heaven's command 

Could stay our maddened men. 
A flood of sudden radiance 

Bathes earth and sea and sky, 



94 



Inkermann. 

Above us bursts exulting 

The sun of victory. 
Holy moment of grim rapture, 

The work of death is done, 
The Muscovite is flying, 

Lost Inkermann is won ! 



Arnin. 95 



EGYPT. 

{From Aminl) 

Beyond the wall, the Nile and Desert wag"e 
Their elemental war, from age to age 
Enduring, symboling the ceaseless strife 
'Twixt sin and innocence, 'twixt death and life. 
Prophetic of the conflict first begun 
And lost in Eden, but on Calvary won. 

Land of the mighty, province of the base. 
Dark, mouldering coffin of a wondrous race, 
Whose books are pyramids, where in a glance 
The present reads its insignificance — 
What tho' the baffled and despairing sage 
Explore in vain the secrets of thy page, 
These everlasting piles that smile on fate 
And dare both man and time to mutilate 



1 This poem contains nearly fourteen hundred lines in the first two 
Cantos. The third Canto can not be found. The poem was written in 
Mr. Miles' twenty-fifth year. 



96 Amin. 

The record they are lifting to the sky, 
Compose the noblest human history : 
Authentic as the stars their self-proved truth 
Attests the majesty of Egypt's youth, 
Still chaunting in an universal tongue 
The grandest epic that was ever sung. 

'Twas there the fruit of knowledge first began 
To mitigate the curse it stained on man ; 
Twas there primeval science proudly sent 
Her glance aloft and read the firmament ; 
There first the mason from the quarry brought 
The stolid rock and shaped it into thought, 
And breathing beauty in the living mass, 
Bade it endure to rival or surpass 
Nature herself. — Twas there the o'erlearned 

priest 
Explored the skies — and deified a beast ; 
Along that burning stream, that baking sod, 
A Moses floated and a Joseph trod. 
There flocked a thousand kings in scorn or awe 
To break a sceptre or receive a law ; 



Amin. 97 

'Twas there the Greek in wondering reverence 
learned 
The mental mastery of the power he spurned, 
And stole the light that round her altars shone 
To burn with softer lustre on his own. 

O what are Persian spire and Grecian dome, 
The shafts of Baalbec and the pomp of Rome, 
The true Promethean marbles that remain 
To spur our genius and to spur in vain ; 
And all that bard or tourist can rehearse 
In forced antithesis or flowing verse ! — 
They seem as if their authors were at play, — 
Things meant for time, frail flowers of yester- 
day. 
Beside the monuments here strewn around, 
A new creation on the mother ground. 
That notched with epochs through all time 

extend 
And link the world's beginning with its end. 



98 Amin. 



THE SOLDIER'S BANQUET SONG. 

(From Amin.) 

Let wearied hind and fainting slave 

Their solace find in sleep, 
That blessed foretaste of the grave, 
Where they may cease to weep, — 
But the soldier sleeps beneath his shield, 
Or staggering from the battle field. 
Rests where the beaker flashes bright, 
Where star-eyed beauty scatters light, 
And mirth and music make the night 
A sweeter solace yield. 

Then cleanse the hand. 
And sheathe the brand, 
And dip the shafts of sorrow 
In light divine 
From the blood of the vine, 
For our own may flow to-morrow ! 



Amin. 99 

The slumbering lovelorn swain may deem 

His darling hears his sighs, 
And win the rapture from a dream 

That morning still denies — 
But the warrior wakes to ward or feel 
The actual point of tested steel : — 
No filmy fancy sketch for him, — 
But the wine that beads the goblet's brim, 
And the lustrous eyes that sink or swim 
In light, must all be real ! 
Then heap the board 
And let the sword 
A wreath from Venus borrow, 
For the fearless eye, 
Now flashing high. 
May be dim enough to-morrow ! 



We'll feast until the Midas sun 

Has turned the earth to gold, 

For many, ere his race be run, 

Must stiffen pale and cold. 
LofC. 



Amin. 

Then shake the flaming cup on high 
And gild the moments as they fly ! 
And while the foaming nectar streams, 
And beauty o'er the goblet gleams, 
What care we whether morning beams 
Bring death or victory. 

Then sheathe the brand 
And, hand in hand, 
Aw^ay with fear and sorrow ! 
For many an arm, 
Now lithe and warm, 
May be cold enough to-morrow. 



ART POEMS. 



I02 



NOTE. 



Raphael Sanzio di Urbino, "the prince of painters," 
was born March 28, 1843, and died Good Friday, April 7, 
1520, aged thirty-seven years. Giiilio Romano was his 
favorite pupil, while Pietro Perugino was his first art 
master and Michael Angelo his contemporary and rival 
in fame. 

The last work of Raphael's brief but busy life is the 
" Transfiguration," which he did not live to finish. Car- 
dinal Giuliano de Medici, wishing to give the town of 
Narbonne a token of his piety and munificence, ordered 
(1517) two altar-pieces for the Cathedral. One, the 
"Transfiguration," he entrusted to Raphael; the other, 
" the Resurrection of Lazarus," to Sebastiano del 
Piombo — "that pack-horse colorist," the assistant of 
Michael Angelo. Michael Angelo composed the design 
of " their Lazarus," while Sebastiano finished it. Both 
pictures were publicly exhibited together, and the palm 
of victory adjudged to Raphael in composition, in design, 
in expression, and in grace. 

At the foot of the Mount of Transfiguration are the 
Disciples, endeavoring in vain to expel an evil spirit from 
a possessed youth. The various emotions of doubt, 
anxiety, and pity portrayed in the different figures 
present a pathetic and powerful conception. Still, the 
"miracle on the Mount" is the one most apt to fix our 
attention. 

This great painting is now in the Vatican Gallery. 



Art Poems. io3 



RAPHAEL SANZIO. 



Keep to the lines — strain not a hair beyond : 
Nature must hold her laws e'en against Hell. 
There! You o'ershoot the mark an inch — you 

paint 
A lie a minute. Giulio/ keep the lines — 
The lines — my lines ! They tell the very worst 
The devil can do with flesh — let Angelo ^ 
Do more. I want no second Spasimo,^ 
No miracles of muscle : on the Mount * 
Is miracle enough — the radiant change 
Of man' to Deity : no need to make 
The boy a fiend outright — for see you not 
Though God's own likeness lives there in his Son, 
Our is not lost ? So keep the lines, nor hope 
To mend their meaning. Wrong again ! Hence- 
forth 



Giulio Romano. 



- Michael Angelo Buonarotti. - . j r *u- 

3 " Lo Spasimo," the Madonna of Sorrows, painted for the 
Monks of Santa Maria dello Spasimo, Palermo, Sicily. 
* The upper part of the Transfiguration. 



I04 Art Poems. 

Reserve your brush to gild the booth, or deck 
Street corners. Friends, forsooth — yoii Rapha- 
el's friend — 
And yet you will not keep my lines — the last 
This hand shall ever trace? — By Bacchus, Sir, 
It had made the hot blood of old Pietro ^ boil 
Had I e'er crazed his purpose so. Have done 
With this : your lampblack darkens all the air. 
Must you o'erride me with that wild, coarse soul 
Of yours ? My hand is still upon the rein : 
There's time enough to run your fiery race 
When I am gone. Why, what a burst of tears ! 
I am not dying ? Wherefore do you stare 
With such a frightened love into my face. 
Your hand all palsied ? Ah, I see it now — 
You feel too much for me, to feel for art. 
Forgive my first unkindness : by and by, 
When I am out of sight, and manly grief 
Has done with tear and tremor — then, some day. 
When your good hand is steady and you feel 



Pietro Vannucci Perugino, Raphael's teacher. 




TRANSFIGURATION — Raphael. 



Art Poems. 105 

The stirring of the true God — to your brush, 
And keep my Hues ! 

This is my birthday/ Giulio ; 
The last one here — the first, perhaps, in Heaven, 
With our dear Angels.- 'Twas a grain too much. 
That brief about restoring ancient Rome : ^ 
His Holiness ■* and I, we both forgot 
Raphael was human. Princely favor, sometimes, 
Fall overheavy, like the Sabine bracelet.^ 
For those damp vaults ^ — their chill struck to my 

heart 
Like the sharp finger of a skeleton, 
While all the caverned ruin whispered out, 
" Behold the end! " Too soon, I thought,— but 

God 
Thinks best. I do not wish to die — should like 
To last a little longer, just to see 



1 Good Friday. 

- Raphael is known especially as the " painter of Madonnas 
and Angels." 

3 It was proposed to attempt an ideal reconstruction of the 
great capital of the Caesars. 

* Leo X. 

^ Under which Tarpeia was crushed. 

6 Some assert that Raphael was carried off by a violent, fever- 
ish cold which he caught while engaged in his excavations and sur- 
veyings in the old city. 



io6 Art Poems. 

That picture finished, and to have our work 
Judged in the peopled halls, swung side by side, 
Michael's and mine! But do not turn your 

head — 
Sit closer. Giulio, men have said I slumbered 
Over those later frescoes ^ and the walls 
Of Agostino ■ — they are right, I did. 
But slumbering there in whitest arms, I learned, 
'Mid all those Nymphs and Graces, this one 

truth — 
The inspiration of the nude is over: 
The Christian Muse is draped. — Tell Michael so, 
When next you find him busy with his Torso.^ 
How then that bare Demoniac,"* do you ask? 
Was't not an artist's thought — the double 

change 
Of man to God above, to fiend below ? 
And then the instant the redeeming foot 



1 The representations from the fable of Cupid and Psyche in 
the Loggia of Agostino Chigi's villa in Trastevere (the Villa 
Farnesina). 

- Agostino Chigi. 

•' The Torso Belvidere, in the Vatican Museum. Michael 
Angelo made this statue his special study. 

■* The boy in the Transfiguration. 



Art Poems. X07 

Forsakes the earth, to loose the naked devil 
Flaunting the scared Apostles ? Who shall say 
Art called not for my boy ? Yet thrice as loud 
As art, called Raphael ! For myself alone 
I drew him, every quivering muscle mapped 
By the infernal strain, that I might hush 
Those sneers of Angelo's, — for I had plucked 
His surgeon secrets ^ from the grave, and meant 
To mate him where he's matchless. I have 

waited 
The coming of that moment when we feel 
The hand is surest, the brain clearest — when 
Our dreams at once are deeds — when upward 

goes 
The curtain from the clouded soul, and art 
Flames all her unveiled Paradise upon us. 
Patiently, trustingly that well-known hour 
I've waited — and, at last, it comes — too late ! 
For now, you see, 'tis hard to reach my hand 

1 Raphael excelled in painting the soft and tender; he lacked 
in portraying the masculine. Whereas Michael Angelo, who had 
spent twelve years in the study of anatomy, was matchless in his 
delineation of muscular strength and vigor. 



io8 Art Poems. 

To your sleek curls, and my poor head seems 

chained 
To this hot pillow. Had I now a tithe 
Of half the strength wasted on Chigi's walls, ^ 
I'd make the demon in that youth discourse 
Anatomy enough to cram the schools 
Till doomsday. Heaven, how plainly there 
Your work stands off from mine ! - Quick with 

your arm — 
I feel the ancient power — give me the colors — 
I and my picture, let us once more meet ! 
God, let me finish it ! Can you not stir 
My bed with those stout shoulders? Then lift 

me — 
Child's play you'll find it — my weak, woman's 

frame 
Never weighed much — a breath can float it now. 
Do as I bid you, boy, I am not mad : 



1 Raphael's connection with this wealthy patron of art began 
soon after the painter's arrival in Rome. The works ordered of 
him by Chigi are so numerous and important that they merit 
special study. 

- Giulio Romano's work is easily distinguished from that of 
Raphael by. darker coloring and less freedom of execution. 



Art Poems. 109 

'Tis not delirium, but returning life. 

for the blood that barber's lancet stole ! ^ — 
So — nearer — nearer — 

— I was dreaming, Giulio, 
That I had finished it, and that it hung 
Beside their Lazarus ; ^ I and Angelo 
Together stood — a little farther off, 
That pack-horse colorist of his from Venice.^ 
There stood we in the light of yonder face, 

1 and my rival, till, asudden, shone 
A look of love in the small hazel eyes. 
And down the double-pointed beard a tear 

Ran sparkling ; and he bowed his head to me — 
The grand, gray, haughty head — and cried 

aloud, 
Thrice cried aloud, "Hail Master !" — Why, 

'tis strange — 
How came I here — these colors on my fingers — 
This brush? Stop — let me think — I am not 

quite 

1 During his illness, Raphael submitted to bleeding. 
- The Resurrection of Lazarus. 
3 Sebastiano del Piombo. 



no Art Poems. 

Awake. Ah, I remember. Swooned, you say? 
How long have I been lying thus ? An hour 
Dead on your breast ? Wheel back the bed — 

put by 
These playthings ! I can do no more for man ! 
And God, who did so much for me — 'tis time 
Something were done for Him. A coach? Per- 
haps 
The black mules of the Cardinal? ^ No? Well, 
Good Friday is the prayer day of the year — 
That keeps him. Who ? — What ! Leo's self ^ 

has sent 
To ask of Raphael ? Kindly done ; and yet 
The iron Pontiff,^ whom I painted thrice, 
Had come. No matter, these are gracious 

words, — 
" Rome were not Rome without me/' My best 

thanks 
Back to his Holiness ; and dare I add 
A message, 'twere that Rome can never be 

* Probably the Cardinal from Santa Maria Rotonda. 
2 Leo X. 
^Julius II, 



Art Poems. ii^ 

Without me. I shall live as long as Rome! 
Bramante's temple ^ there, bequeathed to me 
To hide her cross-crowned bosom in the clouds — 
San Pietro — travertine and marble massed 
To more than mountain majesty — shall scarce 
Outlast that bit of canvas. Let the light in. 
There's the Ritonda - waiting patiently 
My coming. Angelo has built his chape 
In Santa Croce," that his eyes may ope 
On Ser Filippo's Duomo.'^ I would see — 
What think you ? — neither dome ^ nor Giotto's 

shaft/ 
Nor yon stern Pantheon's solemn, sullen grace, 
But Her,'^ whose colors I have worn since first 
I dreamed of beauty in the chestnut shades 
Of Umbria — Her^ for whom my best of life 



^ St. Peter's, of which Bramante was the first architect. In 
accordance with the dying desire of Bramante, Leo X appointed 
Raphael architect of St. Peter's. 

- The Pantheon, or St. Mary of the Martyrs, Rome, in which 
Raphael is buried. 

3 Church of Santa Croce, Florence, where, in the chapel of the 
Buonarotti family, rests the body of Michael Angelo. 

* The Duomo or Cathedral of Florence, desig led and built by 
Filippo Brunelleschi. , r , j 

5 The glory of the Florentine cathedral is its wonderful dome. 

« The detached bell-tower or campanile of the Duomo. 

■^ The Madonna. 



112 Art Poems. 

Has been one labor — Her, the Nazareth Maid, 

Who gave to Heaven a Queen, to man a God, 

To God a Mother. I have hope of it ! — 

And I would see her — not as when she props 

The babe slow tottering to the Cross amid 

The flowering field,^ — nor yet when, Sybil-eyed, 

Backward she sweeps her Son from Tobit's 

Fish,- — 
Nor e'en as when above the footstool angels, 
She stands with trembling mouth, dilated eyes, 
Abashed before the uncurtained Father's 

throne,-'^ — 
But see her wearing the rapt smile of love 
Half human, half divine, as fast she strains 
Her infant in the Chair.^ — 

— There is a step 
Upon the staircase. Has she ^ come again ? — 

^ The Virgin of the Meadow, now in the Belvidere Gallery at 
Vienna. 

- The Madonna del Pesce, or Madonna of the Fish, now in 
Madrid Gallery. 

^ Sistine Madonna, in Dresden Gallery. 

* Madonna della Sedia. Over the altar near which Raphael is 
buried was placed a statue of the Virgin designed and executed 
in accordance with this request by one of his favorite pupils, the 
sculptor, Lorenzetto. This statue still exists under the name of 
the Madonna del Sasso. 

^ The Fornarina. 



Art Poems. 113 

She must not enter. Take her these big pearls 
Meant for the poor dead bride ^ I strove to love. 
Teii her to wear them, when the full moon fires 
The Flavian arches, and she w^anders forth 
To the green spot — she will remember it — 
A little farther on. No more of this. 
Say but the word, too long delayed, — Farewell. 
We said it oft before, meaning it, too, — 
But life and love were with us — so we met. 
This time — we part in earnest. Not a word ? — 
She bent her head and vanished, leaving me 
These flowers? No tears — not one? So like 

her ! Set 
The buds in water — leave me one — this one — 
We'll fade together. Giulio, in my \n\\\ 
Her name stands next to yours: I would not 

have 
Those dark eyes look on want, that looked on me 
So long, so truly. Do not shake your head :^ 
She'll fin4 her wav to Heaven, if I am there 



1 His betrothed, Maria di Bibbiena, whose death occurred 
before their union. 



114 Art Poems. 



Before her. Jealous ? — Brother, I will die 
Upon your bosom — yon shall close these eyes, 
Eyes that have lived above this city's towers, 
Up where the eagle's wing hath never swept : 
Eyes that have scanned the far side of the sun, 
And upward still, high over Hesperus, 
Have climbed the mount where trembling angels 

bow, 
And stolen the shining forms of beauty niched 
Fast by the Eternal throne. I pray you hold 
Those roses something nearer. 

Shall we send 
Francesco for the Cardinal? You see 
The shadow of the pines slopes eastward now — 
Santa Maria's ^ empty : — he may come 
Too late — there's a strange hush about my heart 
Already. Still, a word before the last. 
Long silence comes. I do not think to leave 
An enemy behind me. Angelo 
Has sometimes wronged me, but I can not hate — 



Doubtless Santa Maria Rotonda. 



Art Poems. 115 

I have that weakness — so I pitied him. 

GiiiHo, the artist is not he who dreams, 

But he who does ; — and when I saw this man/ 

Hewing his way into the marble's heart 

For the sweet secret that he dreamed was there, 

Till the fast-fettered beauty perished, killed 

By the false chisel and imperious hand, 

That held no Heaven-commissioned key to ope 

The prison gate — I pitied him, I say ; 

And once I wept, as by me once he stalked 

Beneath the stars, in either eye a tear. 

Groaning beneath his load of voiceless beauty. 

I knew his mighty sorrow — I had felt it, — 

And who that soars has not ? No wing that fans 

The sun, but sometimes burns ! O grandest 

Greek, - 
Not thine alone to ravish fire from Heaven, 
Nor thine alone the rock : in every age. 
The vulture's beak is in the artist's soul ! 



1 Michael Angelo. 
-' Prometheus. 



ii6 Art Poems. 

In this, wc are brothers. Give him my last greet- 
ing 
When next you meet. — 

The Cardinal, at last ? 
Before he enters, Giulio, lay this flower 
Among the others. — You may leave us now. 



Art Poems. 117 



SAN SISTO. 



Three hundred years the world has looked at it 
Unwearied, — it at Heaven ; and here it hangs 
In Dresden, making it a Holy City. 
It is an old acquaintance : you have met 
Copies by thousands, — Morghens ^ here and 

there, — 
But all the sunlight withered. Prints, at best, 
Are but the master's shadow — as you see. 
I call that face the holiest revelation 
God ever made to genius. How or why, 
When, or for whom 'twas painted, wherefore 

ask? 
Enough to know 'tis Raphael, and to feel 
His Fornarina was not with him, when 
Spurning the slow cartoon he flashed that face. 



^ Raffaello Sanzio ]Morghen, the celebrated engraver, was born 
at Naples June 19, 1758, and died at Florence April 8, 1833. 
He made engravings of several of Raphael's works. 



ii8 Art Poems. 

That Virgin Mother's half-transfigured face, 
On canvas. Yes, they say, 'twas meant to head 
Some virginal procession : — to that banner 
Heaven's inmost gates might open, one would 

think. 
But let the picture tell its story — take 
Your stand in this far corner. Falls the light 
As you would have it? That Saint Barbara,^ — 
Observe her inclination and the finger 
Of Sixtus : ^ — both are pointing — zvheref Now 

look 
Below, — those grand boy-angels ; — watch their 

eyes 
Fastened — on whom? — What, not yet catch my 

meaning? . . . 
Step closer, — half a step — no nearer. Mark 
The Babe's fixed glance of calm equality. 
Observe that wondering, rapt, dilated gaze, 



1 Virgin and martyr. According to Baronius, St. Barbara 
was a pupil of Origen and suffered martyrdom at Nicomedia during 
the sixth general persecution, about 235. 

- A priest of the Roman clergy, chosen Pope in 432. Died 
March 28, 440. The Benedictine Church at Piacenza was dedi- 
cated to St. Sixtus. 



Art Poems. 119 

The Mother's superhuman joy and fear, 
That hushed — that startled adoration ! Watch 
Those circled cherubs swarming into light, 
Wreathing their splendid arch, their golden ring, 
Around the unveiled vision. Look above 
At the drawn curtain! — Ah, zve do not see 
God's self, but tlicy do : — they are face to face 
With the unveiled Omnipotent ! 



NOTE. 



The San Sisto was the last Madonna painted by- 
Raphael, as the Transfiguration was his last composi- 
tion. It was painted at the request of the Benedictine 
monks of the Church of San Sisto in Piacenza, who had 
asked for a picture which should contain the Virgin and- 
Child, St. Sixtus and St. Barbara, to be used as a pro- 
cessional standard. It was executed on canvas and en- 
tirely finished by Raphael himself. No previous drawing 
or study was made, no model posed. '* Spurning the 
slow cartoon," as if by a single inspiration, the red chalk 
struck the outline of the woman of the Apocalypse. In 
this work the genius of Raphael is most directly ex- 
hibited. Into it he concentrated every excellence which 
he had previously attained. The San Sisto is full of 
spirituality and marvelous in its sublimity, and yet a 
more simple arrangement could scarcely be conceived. 

Augustus III, Elector of Saxon}'-, -purchased this paint- 
ing (1753) for the Dresden Gallery. 



120 




SISTINE MADONNA — Raphael. 



Art Poems. 121 



THE IVORY CRUCIFIX. 



Within an attic old at Genoa, 

Full many a year, I ween, 
Had lain a block of ivory. 

The largest ever seen. 

Though wooing centuries had wiled 

Its purity away. 
Gaunt Time had made a slender meal, 

So well it braved decay. ■ 

If we may trust Tradition's tongue, 

Some mastodon before 
The wave kissed Ararat's tall peak, 

The splendid trophy wore, 



Art Poems. 

Certes, no elephant e'er held 

Aloft so rich a prize, 
Not India's proudest jungle boasts 

A tusk of half the size. 



A monk obtained and to his cell 

The relic rare conve3'ed, 
And bending o'er the uncouth block 

This Monk, communing, said : — 



Be mine the happy task by day 

And through the midnight's gloom, 

To toil and still toil on until 
This shapeless mass assume 



" The form of Him who on the Cross 
For us poured forth his blood : 
Thus man shall ever venerate 
This relic of the flood. 



Art Poems. 123 

Though now a witness to the wrath 

Of the dread God above, 
Changed by my chisel, it shall be 

The emblem of His love." 



That night when on his pallet stretched, 

As slumber o'er him stole, 
A glorious vision brightly broke 

Upon his ravished soul. 

He sees his dear Redeemer stand 
On Calvary's sacred height, 

The Crucifixion is renewed 
Before his awe-struck sight. 

He sees his Saviour's pallid cheek 
With pitying tears impearled. 

He hears His dying accents bless 
A persecuting world : 



124 ^ft Poems. 

Sees the last look of love supreme 
Conquering each aching sense, 

Superior to agony 
Its deep benevolence. 



The matin bell has pealed — the Monk 
Starts from his brief repose; 

But still before his waking eye 
The vivid dream arose. 



His morning orisons are said, 
His hand the chisel wields, 

Slowly before the eager steel 
The stubborn ivory yields. 

The ancient block is crusted o'er 
With a coating hard and gray, 

But soon the busy chisel doffs 
This mantle of decay. 



Art Poems. 125 

And now, from every blemish freed, 

Upon his kindhng eye. 
In all its pristine beauty, dawns 

The milk-white ivory. 



The sun arose, the sun went down, 

Arose and set again, 
But still the Monk his chisel plies ■ 

Oh, must he toil in vain ? 

Not his the highly cultured touch 
That bade the marble glow, 

And with a hundred statues linked 
The name of Angelo. 

Perchance some tiny image he 
Had fashioned oft before, 

But art had ne'er to him unveiled 
Her closely hoarded lore. 



126 Ai't Poems. 

A faithful hand, an eye possessed 
Of genius' inborn beam, 

Or inspiration's loftier light, 
IMust body forth his dream. 



The moon has filled her fickle orb, 

The moon is on the wane, 
A crescent now she sails the sky, 

And now is full again. 

But bending o'er that ivory block 
The Monk is kneeling there. 

Full half his time to toil is given, 
And half is spent in prayer. 

Four years elapsed before the Monk 
Threw his worn chisel by; 

Complete at last before him lies 
The living ivory. 



Art Poems. 127 

His dream at last is bodied forth, 

And to the world is given 
A sight that well may wean the soul 

From earth awhile to heaven. 



The dying look of love supreme 
Conquering each aching sense, 

Unquenched by burning pain, reveals 
Its vast benevolence. 



Behold that violated cheek 
With pitying tears impearled, 

The parting lips that seem to bless 
A cold and faithless world. 



Has not the light of Word inspired 

A true reflection here, 
Does not the sacrifice of love 

In ivory reappear? 



128 Art Poems. 

Is not the Evangel's sacred page 

Translated here as well 
As any human alphabet 

Its glorious truths can tell ? 

The mystery recorded there 

Is here but told anew. 
Let those who would my gaze forbid 

Conceal the Gospel, too. 



MINOR POEMS. 



NOTE. 



There seems to be a dearth of short pieces in the writ- 
ings of Mr. Miles. When we consider the volume and 
character of his more sustained efforts, we should rea- 
sonably expect a much larger number of minor poems 
from his pen. The few selections presented here are 
like flashlights, revealing the mind and manner of the 
author. The one entitled " Said the Rose " possesses 
poetry enough to immortalize any name. 



130 



Minor Poems. 13^ 



THE DEVIL'S VISIT TO—. 



The Devil told the damned one day, 

To take some recreation, 
For he had a visit of state to pay 

To a certain corporation. 

So he tucked up his tail and combed his hair, 

And went to a certain town, 
And says he — " Mister Mayor, it's pretty clear 
That my friend, the Plague, is coming here." — 

" Pretty clear," says the Mayor, '' sit down." 

The Devil sat down : — " My good sir," says he, 
" Your streets are as dirty as dirty can be." — 
Here the Mayor gave a wink and said 
"Well?" 
And the Devil resumed, " Don't disturb the re- 
pose 



132 Minor Poems. 

Of the mud whose aroma is sweet as the rose, 
And — I'll soften your pillow in Hell ! " 

The bargain was struck and the Devil made 

Tracks back to his old domain; 
While the Mayor, grinning, said, " Tho' I'm 

half afraid 
To stir a scraper or lift a spade, — 

I think I may pray for a rain." 



AN AMBROTYPE. 



Great Jove, let old Prometheus have relief, 
And put a bolder robber in his place, — 

The sun — long-fingered thief ! — 
Stole Heaven from earth in taking that sweet 

face. 



Minor Poems. 133 



AN ALBUM PIECE. 



Long — long- ago I ceased to sing 

And hung up lute and lyre, 
For want had clipped the poet's wing 

And tears put out his fire. 

In vain you threaten — " write, sir, write, 

Refuse me if you dare ! 
You find my eyes so very bright. 

Catch inspiration there." 

No, miss: — my muse and you, my dear, 
May both go — where you ought ; 

I catch it when I look at her, 
And when at ygu — I'm caught. 



134 Minor Poems. 



THE REVERSE. 



Be still, my heart, beneath the rod, 

And murmur not; 
He too was Man — the Son of God — 

And shared thy lot. 

Shared all that we can suffer here. 

The wrong, the loss. 
The blopdy sweat, the scourge, the sneer. 

The Crown, the Cross, 

The final terror of the Tomb, — 

His guiltless head 
Self-consecrated to the doom 

We merited. 

Then languish not for Edens lost 

Or vanished bliss ; 
The heart that suffers most, the most 

Resembles His. 



Minor Poems. ^35 



SAID THE ROSE. 



I am weary of the Garden, 

Said the Rose ; 
For the winter winds are sighing, 
All my playmates round me dying, 
And my leaves will soon be lying 

'Neath the snows. 

But I hear my Mistress coming. 

Said the Rose; 
She will take me to her chamber. 
Where the honeysuckles clamber, 
And I'll bloom there all December 

Spite the snows. 



136 Minor Poems. 

Sweeter fell her lily finger 

Than the bee! 
Ah, how feebly I resisted, 
Smoothed my thorns, and e'en assisted 
As all blushing I was twisted 

Off my tree. 

And she fixed me in her bosom 

Like a star; 
And I flashed there all the morning, 
Jasemine, honeysuckle scorning, 
Parasites for ever fawning 

That they are. 



And when evening came she set me 

In a vase 
All of rare and radiant metal, 
And I felt her red lips settle 
On my leaves till each proud petal 

Touched her face. 



Minor Poems. 137 

And I shone about her skimbers 

Like a light; 
And, I said, instead of weeping, 
In the garden vigil keeping, 
Here I'll watch my Mistress sleeping 

Every night. 

But when morning with its sunbeams 

Softly shone, 
In the mirror where she braided 
Her brown hair I saw how jaded. 
Old and colorless and faded, 

I had grown. 



Not a drop of dew was on me. 

Never one; 
From my leaves no odors started, 
All my perfume had departed, 
I lay pale and broken-hearted 

In the sun. 



138 Minor Poems. 

Still, I said, her smile is better 

Than the rain; 
Though my fragrance may forsake me, 
To her bosom she will take me. 
And with crimson kisses make me 

Young again. 

So she took me . . . gazed a second . 

Half a sigh . . . 
Then, alas, can hearts so harden ? 
Without ever asking pardon, 
Threw me back into the garden 

There to die. 

How the jealous garden gloried 

In my fall ! 
How the honeysuckles chid me, 
How the sneering jasmines bid me 
Light the long, gray grass that hid me 

Like a pall. 



Minor Poems. 139 

There I lay beneath her window 

In a swoon, 
Till the earthworm o'er me trailing 
Woke me just at twilight's failing, 
As the whip-poor-will was wailing 

To the moon. 

But I hear the storm-winds stirring 

In their lair ; 
And I know they soon will lift me 
In their giant arms and sift me 
Into ashes as they drift me 

Through the air. 

So I pray them in their mercy 

Just to take 
From my heart of hearts, or near it. 
The last living leaf, and bear it 
To her feet, and bid her wear it 

For my sake. 



I40 Minor Poems. 



THE ALBATROSS. 



Think of me often " — With a smile 

You said it, fair Lady, for you knew 
That everywhere and everywhile 
I think of you. 

Have you forgotten, though years ago, 

A summer evening's walk of ours. 
When earth was vocal and aglow. 
With birds and flowers? 

The sun was printing his parting kiss 

On the cross of the Chapel spire. 
The brook bounded by with a laugh of bliss 
And eyes of fire. 



Minor Poems. 141 

The lark slid lazily to his nest, 

His matin music still, 
The mourner minstrel wooed in the West — 
The Avhip-poor-will. 

A star stole timidly to its place, 

And stood fast in the deepening blue, 
And you bent your head, while over your face 
An arch smile flew r 

For my love was born with that tell-tale star 

In the holy hush of even. 
Timidly stealing to earth from afar — 
The far, high Heaven. 

Ah, you knew it well, for the proud lip curled 

At a love, mute, hopeless, true ; 
You knew that I wearily walked the world, 
Thinking of you : 



142 Minor Poems. 

Thinking of you these long, lost years 

Of penury, peril, pain : 
Thinking of you through sunshine and tears 
Thinking in vain ! 

White, lonely, changeless, beautiful. 

Amid life's tempest-toss, 
Your image tranquilly sleeps on my soul — 
Its Albatross. 



Minor Poems. 143 



BEATRICE. 



Sleep on, 
My lost one, — each will walk the world alone, 
Since Heaven so wills it : with thy daily cares 
Thou wilt deal calmly, and thy guardian 

prayers 
Shall follow me, that I may sometimes find 
Grandeur in nature, fragrance in the wind, 
Beauty in woman, gentleness in man ; 
For O, it seems as if the stream that ran 
Beside my soul were dry, and all things have 
A withered look : the sunbeam in the wave 
No longer dances, — the cold clouds refuse 
Their sunset glow, — the unsought roses lose 
Their perfumed blushes, — dimly wandereth 
The moon amid the tree-tops, pale as death, 
Weary and chill, — and I can scarce rejoice 
In music's benediction, and the voice 



144 Minor Poems. 

Of friendship sounds like solemn mockery. 
Why, e'en the tingling cheek and soaring eye 
Of genius, visioned with some splendid dream, 
Seem scenic tricks : — unwooed, unwelcome gleam 
The plumed thoughts, — nor have I heart to win 
The broidered butterflies we catch and pin 
To poet desks, in boyhood. Yet fear not 
The future : I shall bravely front my lot. 
With the one rapture manhood ne'er forgoes. 
The stately joy of mastering its woes. 
No eye shall see me falter, — I shall ask 
No respite on the wheel, — whate'er the task 
The circling days appoint, I humbly trust 
For strength to do it : — there shall be no rust 
On sword or shield, — howe'er the heart may 

ache 
Beneath the goad ; yet, sweet, for thy dear 

sake 
I'll wear the yoke, until the furrow opes 
A little deeper, — then we'll end it, hopes 
And fears. 



Minor Poems. i45 

Yet sometimes, when the old desire 
Of rhyming comes, and the famihar choir 
Of cherub voices, with returning song, 
Makes my sad chamber musical ; when throng 
The cloistered faces, with uplifted veil, 
Each with remembered smile, — serene and pale. 
As those stone priestesses that walk in Rome 
And Florence, shall thy living image come 
And stand before me, motioning the rest 
Away. And I believe — O ! stir not, lest 
Waking bring utter anguish — that when years. 
The morning years of life, have passed, and 

tears 
And time and sorrow shall have so o'erthrown 
The temple of thy beauty, that unknown 
We two may walk the ways where now, alas ! 
The finger follows, and false whispers pass 
'Twixt smiling friends,— when perished youth's 

last charm, 
E'en they who blamed us most, exclaim, What 

harm 



146 Minor Poems. 

In their nozij meeting? — let me, love, believe 
This parting not for ever — that some eve 
Like this, I may approach thee, kneeling, 

smooth 
Thy loose brown hair, warm thy cold fingers, 

soothe 
Thy aching bosom, lay my hand upon 
Thy brow, and touch these dear lips — thus — 

Sleep on! 



Minor Poems, 147 



PARTINGS. 



I will not say that I have knelt, 

That I have looked and loved in vain, 
Nor will I say that I have felt 

A love I may not feel again : 
There beats no fever in my breast, 

There burns no madness on my brow, 
But only a dull, strange unrest 

About my heart — unknown till now. 

I will not say that I have nursed. 

Beneath thine eye, the morning fire 
That once from youth's warm bosom burst 

To rage an instant — then expire : 
But as they told us we must part, 

And that our placid dream was o'er, 
I felt a shadow cross my heart, — 

A void T never felt before. 



148 Minor Poems. 



THERE WAS A TIME. 



There was a time she rose to greet me, 

But what, alas! cared I? 
For well I knew she flew to meet me, 

Yet met me with a sigh. 
I left her in her deep dejection, 

And laughed with merry men; 
What cared I for her true affection? 

I did not love her then. 

But now I wander weak and weary, 

And what, alas ! cares she ? 
I lost her love, and life grew dreary. 

She scarce remembers me. 
In vain, in vain I now implore her, 

She spurns my tearful vow ; 
Too late, too late, I now adore her. 

She does not love me now. 



Minor Poems. ^49 

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15° ' Minor Poems. 



ON THE DEATH OF DR. 



Mute are the mountains now ! No more that cry 

Of the full chase by all the breezes borne 
Down the defiles, while echo's swift reply 

Speeds the loud chorus ! Nevermore the horn 
Of our lost chief will shake 
Those tempest-riven crags, or pierce the startled 
brake ! 

Scarcely twelve hours have passed since, at my 
gate, 
Beneath the over-arching oaks we met ; 
Throned in his saddle, statue-like he sate, 
A horseman every inch : I see him yet, 
His morning mission done, 
His deep-mouthed pack behind him trailing, onQ 
bv one. 



Minor Poems. 151 

Dying-? along the trembling mountain flies 
The fearful whisper fast from cot to cot; 
Strong fathers stand aghast and mothers' eyes 
Melt as their white lips stammer, " Not, oh ! 
not 
Him of all others? Nay, 
Not him who from our hearth so oft drove death 
away ? " 

Well may those pale groups gather at each door, 
Well may those tears that dread the worst be 
shed. 
The hand that healed their ills will move no more, 
The life that served to lengthen theirs has fled ; 
And while they pray and weep, 
Unto his rest he passeth like a child asleep. 

I've known him oft, by anguish chained abed, 
Forsake his midnight pillow with a moan, 

And meekly ride wherever pity led, 

To heal a sorrow slighter than his own ; 



152 Minor Poems. 

Or rich or pCMDr the same — 
It mattered not : let any sorrow call, he came. 

A sad and sudden death ! This very morn 

He rode amongst us : sick men woke to hear 
The steps of his black pacer ; the new-born 

Smiled on him from their cradles. Many a 
tear 
On faces wan and dim 
He dried to-day: to-night those cheeks are wet 
for him. 



TRAGEDIES. 



NOTES. 

Mohammed. A blank verse tragedy in five acts, 
written in 1849, won from nearly a hundred competitors 
the prize offered by Mr. Edwin Forrest. The reading 
and research necessary as a preparation for producing 
Mohammed have given a tinge of orientalism to much 
of Mr. Miles' later writings. 

De Soto. Was written for James E. Murdock, and 
acted by him 1852, and E. L. Davenport 1852-1855. 
The play was revised by the author in 1856, but not given 
to the public in printed form. 

Cromwell. This tragedy has to do with English his- 
tory from the defeat of Essex to the death of Charles I. 
The manuscripts of this play, although much crossed 
and corrected by the author, can be deciphered perfectly. 
It is hoped that the public will not have to wait long to 
see the plays of Miles published in complete form. 



:54 



Moll am in ed. 155 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 



The design of this play is to explain the life 
of Mohammed, from the age of forty till his 
death, a period of twenty years. Many a single 
fact, in his extraordinary career, furnishes ample 
material for a play. . . . The love and apostasy 
of AH and Fatima, breaking Abu Taleb's heart, 

— Ayesha betrothed to Omar, but wrested from 
him by her father, and consigned to the Prophet's 
arms, — Omar's hypocrisy for the sake of revenge ; 

— plots like this, sparkling with brilliant scenes, 
occurred to tempt me from my original design. 

A- M; >!< t^ ;!: 

After all that has been said, the true character 
of the great founder of Islam is but imperfectly 
understood. Had he not sincerely believed in 
the Unity of God, had he not detested idolatry, 



156 Mohammed. 

had he not most fervently wished to redeem 
Arabia from her slavish superstition, had he not 
been in earnest in all this, he could not have ac- 
complished such great and permanent results. 
Yet at the very outset of his career, when his 
motives were purest, his fidelity to Cadijah un- 
impeached, we know that he was guilty of willful 
deceit and imposture. For, admitting that the 
appearance of Gabriel and the Mesra were de- 
lusions of zealot fancy or of the devil, yet surely 
he could not dupe himself so far as to believe that 
the angel handed him the Koran, which he either 
wrote himself, or received from a hired scribe. 
Here is the difficulty : not only have we to recon- 
cile truth and falsehood, sincerity and deceit, — 
for, in most historically great men, there is more 
or less of this, — but we are dealing with one, 
who, believing himself a Prophet, asserts it by 
imposture, — the messenger of Allah preparing 
mankind by a deliberate lie for the reception of 
Eternal Truth. 



Mohammed. 1 5 7 

From this point of view, the play was written. 
The brevity required in representation on the 
stage (at which I aimed) compelled me to omit 
much that might support my interpretation of 
this " sincere impostor." Truth rarely floats on 
the surface of history ; it is only by looking long 
into the stream, that we see the jewel lurking 
in the bed. 

The lesson conveyed by the life and death of 
the Arabian impostor, is the inability of the 
greatest man, starting with the purest motives, 
to counterfeit a mission from God, without be- 
coming the slave of hell. 



158 Mohammed. 



THE FOUNDING OF ISLAM. 
{From Mohammed.) 

Act I. 

Scene i. Night of At Kadir. — Cave of Hara, 
three miles from Mecca. — Mohammed is seen 
prostrate upon the slope of a rock, resembling a 
rude pedestal, his face concealed by his turban. 
Enter Cadijah. 

Cadijah (looking timidly around). He bade 
me meet him here, before the moon 
Had silvered half the night ; — but, as he spoke. 
His flashing eyes were full of mystery ; 
His words were few, and stern, and tremulous. 
And, knotted on his brow, the laboring vein 
So fiercely swelled, that in his nervous grasp 
I quivered like a leaf, — and still my heart 
Seems not to beat, but, with my creeping flesh. 
To shudder. Yes — I tremble still. (She sees 

him.) 
Asleep? (She approaches, and bends over him.) 
Asleep ! — O, sweet surprise — I breathe again ! 

(She embraces him.) 



Mohmmned. 159 

Son of Abdallah and Amina, hear ! 

Mohammed, wake! {She tries to arouse him.) 

'Tis strange ! — his slumbers ever 

Fled at the gentlest whisper of my voice, 

Or at the faintest murmur of his babes. 

{Slie tries again to zvake him.) 
Awake! Awake! Tis thy Cadijah calls thee! 

(She starts up.) 
Alas, this is not sleep! Some evil spirit 
O'ershadows thee ; — and, with prophetic soul. 
Thou didst invoke Cadi j ah 's presence here, 
To share thy danger or avert the spell. 
(She falls upon her knees, zvith her back to him.) 
Hear, great Taala! gleaming Sirius, hear! 
Al Uzza, Hobal, guardian gods of Mecca, 
Assist me now ! 

(At the mention of these idols, Mohammed 
lifts his head: as she pronounces the last zvords, 
he rises, zvith his eyes fixed on the top of the 
rock.) 

Mohammed. Gone! — Gone! — Celestial mes- 
senger ! 
Angel of light ! — Whence came those damned 
sounds ? 
Cad. My own dear lord ! 



i6o Mohammed. 

MoH. What ! — thou ? — Begone ! Away ! 
The ground is holy ! — Yes 'twas there — 'twas 

there 
The angel stood, in more than mortal splendor, 
Before my dazzled vision ! — I have heard thee. 
Ambassador from Allah to my soul. 
Have heard, and will obey ! 

(He bows reverently before the rock.) 

Cad. Alas, he raves! 
My lord, what aileth thee ? 

MoH. Cadi j ah ! — Tell me, — 
Was it from thy most pure and cherished lips 
Those names accursed fell? 

Cad. What names, dear lord? 

MoH. Al Uzza, Hobal, Sirius — Pah! they 
choke me — 
The names by which the idols are invoked ! 

Cad. Yes, I did ask our gods to bless thee. 

MoH. Hush ! — 
Call them not gods — those blind and monstrous 

things, 
Those crude deformities, misshapen lumps 
Of lifeless clay ! — There is no God but One, — 
Mohammed is his Prophet! 



Mohammed. i6i 

Hear me, Cadi jab. Thou rememberest well 

When first I led to fruitful Syria 

Thy caravan: my fifteenth summer still 

Was blooming in my cheeks. I there beheld 

The rites of Jew and Christian, and oft heard 

The precepts of their sacred volumes. Then 

The unknown truths, of which my pining soul 

Had vaguely dreamed, began to dawn in beauty. 

In solitude and silence, years rolled by : 

Scorning idolatry, mistrusting all 

The subtle heresies of monk and Jew, 

Mine eye, unsatisfied, was ever raised 

To its Creator, asking light ! light ! light ! 

It came, at last, Cadijah — here ! — this night ! — 

This very hour ! 

* He * * * 

I was here alone. 

Expecting thee, when, suddenly, I heard 

My name pronounced, with voice more musical 

Than Peri warbling in the dreamy ear. 

Ravished, I turned, and saw upon that rock, 

Resplendent hovering there, an angel form: 

I knew 'twas Gabriel, Allah's messenger. 

Celestial glories compassed him around ; 



1 62 Mohammed. 

Arched o'er his splendid head, his gUstening 

wings 
Shed Hght, and musk, and melody. No more 
I saw, — no more my mortal eye could bear. 
Prone on my face I fell, and, from the dust, 
Besought him quench his superhuman radiance. 
" Look up ! " he said : I stole a trembling glance ; 
And there, a beauteous youth, he stood and 

smiled. 
Then, as his ruby lips unclosed, I heard — 
'' go_, teach what mortals know not yet 

There is 
No God but One, — Mohammed is his 

Prophet ! " 

^ ^ jjj ;jj 

My mission is to all mankind, but first 
To thee ! Dost thou believe ? 

Cad. My lord ! 

MoH. My wife! 
Believe! — for though thy breath is half my life, 
And though I hold thy deep maternal love 
Dearer than all the wealth that lines the sea, 
Or decks the Persian priest, or tyrant Greek, — 
Dearer than all the beauty in the world 



Mohammed. 163 

Gathered and moulded into one fair woman, — 
Yet, by the throne of Allah, whose commands 
Possess my soul, if thou believest not, 
With thy whole heart and mind, thou shalt expire, 
A victim to thy infidelity! 

(She falls upon her knees.) 
Who will believe, if thou art recreant? 
Who will receive, if thou dost turn away? 
Who will adore, if thou shalt still refuse 
To bend thy stubborn knee ? 'Tis writ above. 
By angel fingers, with a pen of light, 
Upon the mystic tablets, which contain 
Th' eternal scheme fulfilled and unfulfilled. 
Thou shalt believe, and shalt be blest forever ! 
Blest in the shadow of the Tuba tree — 
Blest in the pearl-paved garden of Al Jannat — 
Blest at the sweet and fragrant fount of Tas- 

nim — 
Blest in the midst of Allah and his angels ! — 
Exalt thy heart in praise and gratitude ! — 
Confess ! confess there is no God but One, — 
Mohammed is his Prophet! 

Scene IL Square before the Temple, at sunrise. 
Enter Omar, buried in thought. 



164 Mohammed. 

Omar. Where shall I find a stepping-stone to 
power ? — 
Men laud my wisdom — could my wisdom win 
Authority, a diadem of pearls 
Should ornament and recompense my brains. 
What's wisdom, if it cannot benefit 
Its master? 

(He folds Jiis arms on his breast, and muses. 
Enter Abubeker.) 

Abubeker (touching Omar). Thinking, Omar, 
— ever thinking? 

Omar. Thought's an infirmity to which I'm 
subject. 

Abub. a pestilence that blackens you all over. 
Thinking of what? 

Om. The future! 

Abub. (bowing, in mock reverence.) Prophesy. 

Om. Our governor Abu Taleb's failing fast; 
The peace of Mecca hangs upon his life ; 
The rival lines of Hashem and Ommeya 
Will light their feuds around his funeral torch. 

Abub. Sophian, the Ommeyite, must prevail. 
Ali, our governor's son, is but a boy, 
Artless, all fire and impulse, and a poet. 



Mohammed. 165 

As for Mohammed, he consumes his Hfe 
Moping in Hara's cave or housed in Mecca, 
Shunning all intercourse with man or God : 
I know not what he means. 

Om. He's not the man 
To be absorbed in nothing, Abubeker: 
Rely upon it, he means something. 

Abub. (sneering.) Means! 
Sophian's action's too much for his meaning. 
Caled, Amrou, with more than half the army. 
And all the Bedouin tribes, are fast Ommeyites. 
Two thirds of Mecca clamor for Sophian — 
He has the people with him. 

Om. And soon may have them on him. 

Abub. The masses make the governor. 

Om. And may 
Unmake him too. 

***** 

(Exeunt Omar and Ahuheker. Enter Sophian.) 
Sophian. Old men are just as slow 
In dying, as in everything they do. 
One old man's life is all that stands between 
Me and that aim and summit of my hopes, — 
To govern Mecca ; — but he zvill not die. 



1 66 Mohammed. 

Ah, here he is, and weaker, thank the gods ! 

(Enter Abu Taleb.) 
Hail to the honored Governor of Mecca! 
Hail, Abu Taleb ! I am filled with joy, 
To see thy cheeks still ruddy with the bloom 
Of youth. 

Abu Taleb. No, no: these thin and frosty 
locks. 
Whitened by fourscore years, are dropping down 
O'er cheeks as pallid as themselves. My stream 
Will soon be lost among the sands. 

Soph. The gods 
Forbid !. 

A. Tal. I thank thee. 
Soph. May we soon expect 
Mohammed, thy dear nephew, from the cave 
Of Hara? 

A. Tal. Ere the day has closed, I hope. 

(Exit Abu Taleb.) 
Soph. Ay, totter on, thou withered Hashem- 
ite! 
Soon must the grave, now gaping, close on thee ; 
And then, Sophian's Governor of Mecca! 
(Enter Caleb and Anirou.) 



Mohammed. 167 

Soph. Caled, have you marked, of late, 
The sudden change in this Mohammed's man- 
ner — 
How sternly through the Caaba he sweeps, 
Frowning upon our venerated idols, 
Nor bowing e'en before the agate shafts 
Of purple Hobal? 

Caled. I have marked him oft, 
And thought contempt, instead of reverence, 

lurked 
Within his eye. 

Soph. And, Caled, did the sight 
Not send the indignant blood against thy cheek? 

Cal. No, or it would have quickly sent my 
hand 
Against my sword : but I am more offended. 
When, stiff with majesty, he stalks along. 
Hugging himself in solemn dignity, 
As if, perforce, he mingled with mankind, 
And spurned us, to commune with some wise god 
Within him. 

(Exeunt Caleb and Amron.) 

Soph. . . . High-reaching thoughts 
Shall pamper my ambition. There's young Ali, 



1 68 Mohammed. 

A vain, romantic fool — a doting lover, — 

Too young to care, too weak to scheme for 

power, — 
And mad Mohammed, whose ignoble soul, 
Incapable of soaring, never felt 
Ambition's goad, — these are my only rivals: 
With Caled and Amrou on either hand, 
I feel already governor elect! {Exit Sophian.) 



Scene III. Apartment at Mohammed's — a 
table set for dinner, containing simply a lamb 
and a bowl of milk. — As the scenes part, Mo- 
hammed is discovered between AH and Fatima, 
who are kneeling on the right and left, each with 
a hand in his. 

Mohammed. Now, while the heavens are 
listening — while the tree, 
Whose tuneful leaves perpetual music shed 
O'er Paradise, is mute, — pronounce again 
Those blessed words ! 

Ali and Fatima. There is no God but 
One,— 
Mohammed is his Prophet! 
MoH. Lo ! the ranks 



Mohammed. 169 

Of white-winged Cherubim indine their heads, 

To drink these accents. Rise, my children, rise ! 

(They rise.) My cousin AH, if I read aright 

Thy ardent soul, my daughter Fatima 

Will make the roseate earth a fitting path 

To that sweet heaven I promise thee; but faith 

Alone deserves, and faith alone can win her. 

(Raising her veil.) 
Dost love her, AH? 

All Love her ! — life has been 
One tribute to her ! Is there in the past 
A thought that was not of her ? — can the future 
Reflect a wish that is not burning for her ? — 
O, Fatima! 

. . . Love can make the eager foot of youth 
Fleet as the horse of Nejed. 

MOH. . . . 
The feast, to-day, 

Is for the spirit, not its clay companion. 
I ofifer you no soul-subduing wine. 
Nor grape, nor olive from the groves of Yemen, 
Nor meats enriched with spices that once flung 
Their gay aroma o'er the Indian ocean ; — 

(He rises.) 



1 7° Mohammed. 

I offer you what gold can never buy, 

Or sabre win, or prince or priest bestow — 

Islam and Eden ! ( They all spring up. ) 

Hear me, sons of Adam ! 

The angel Gabriel in Mount Hara's cave 

Appeared, last night, and thundered in mine 

ear, — 
" Go, Prophet of the true and only God, 
Announce to man the glory of thy Master ! " 
And here, obedient to that voice divine, 
Now, while his touch immortal thrills my soul, — 
Now, when a power supernal drives me on, — 
I call you to the service of the true 
And only God ! 

^ 5}i ^ >J< 5}i 

A. Tal. Then, canst thou ask us to fall down 

And worship thee? 

MoH. Not me, but Him who sends me. 
I do not say this mortal flesh is rich 
With God's own essence and angelic ichor. 
Or cry, " My right hand holds the key of 

heaven ! " 
I claim not to have scanned the hidden things 
Locked in the eternal breast ; — I ask but this, — 



Mohammed. 171 

Believe what is revealed. 
Am. Revealed to whom? 
MoH. To me. 

Am. To thee? — but there must also be 
A revelation unto us, that there has been 
This revelation unto thee ; or else 
Perform a miracle, and prove thy mission. 
For instance, bring to life this roasted lamb. 
And send it bleating to that bowl of milk. 

(They laugh.) 
MoH. Laugh on — I bend my head submis- 
sively. 
Since time began, the prophet's foot has pressed 
The thorn,— and curses greet him from the Hps 
He came to bless. But tremble while ye laugh,— 
The past is fearful with the scoffer's doom. 
You ask for miracles : if Allah wills 
That light should reach your hearts, no miracle 
Is needed ; but if, wounded by your pride. 
He wills it not, though troops of angels came, 
Refulgent in celestial drapery. 
To win your faith, ye still would disbelieve: 
E'en if they built a ladder to the skies. 
Ye would not climb. 



172 Dc Soto. 



THE DEATH OF DE SOTO. 

{From De Soto.) 

Act V. Scene IV. 

Anasco and Others. Victory ! 

De Soto. No ! — none whilst Tuscaluza lives. 

Thrice have I seen him — thrice to combat dared 

him — 
Thrice foiled by intervening fools that claimed 
The death designed for him. — Heav'n place him 

here 
Armed with thy dread artillery — fenced by 

legions — 
Shew me the man — the penetrable flesh 
That crusts his soul — and tho' the flames of Hell 
Wag their lithe tongues between us, they shall 

fail 
To part th' Avenger and the victim. 

Gallegos. Rest. 

The day is won. 

De S. My oath is unfulfilled! 



Dc Soto. 173 

Hold out, my soul ! — if there's one warrior spark 
Within thee, let it kindle to a blaze. 
Body of mine, thou art no mate for me ! — 
Thy joints are supple and thy muscles clothed 
With power, — but the untiring spirit needs 
A minister immortal as itself. 
Not all the might that arms the lion's paw. 
Or seals the charger's horned hoof with death, 
Or swells the serpent when, erect with hate, 
He crashes thro' the jungle, satisfies 
Our restless appetite — still thirsting on 
The soul must have its Maker's thunderbolt 
Or pine as I do now. (Enter soldier oifering 
water in his helm.) 

Thou first, best gift 
Of Heav'n — The oath! — the oath! I cannot 

taste it. 
{Tuscalu::a passes amid the flame in the back- 
ground.) 
'Tis Tuscaluza ! — Wert thou Mercury 
With all his wings fresh fledged, thou couldst 

not 'scape me. 
My horse, Gallegos. — (Exit Gallegos.) 



174 De Soto. 

Hold him in thine eye, 
Gaytan, tho' Heav'n yawn to the empyrean ! 
{Exit De Soto. Enter Alvarado and soldiers.) 
Alvar. Now let our trumpets sound a pause 
to battle. 
Slaughter has done its work, let mercy reign. 

{Enter Goncalo.) 
GoN. The fleet, my Lord, the fleet is in the 

river. 
Alvar. Art sure? 

GoN. Their sails are whitening half the stream. 
Alvar. Meet them and ask of Isabella. 
Haste ! 
Thou to the fleet, and I to seek De Soto. 

{E.veunt separately.) 

Scene. V. {Night. Enter Alvarado, Porcallo.) 

Alvar. Hast seen De Soto ? — Speak ! — 
PoR. I followed them 

Thro' marsh and glen, until the heathen turned 
Grim with despair and rage, and stood at bay. 
At his first shaft, methought De Soto reeled — 
A second flew — Abdallah plunged and fell. 



De Soto. 175 

But like a lion bounding from his lair 
De Soto sprang upon him : with one hand 
Fast on his wrist he plucked his bow away — 
Then took him by the throat. — My sword was 

raised 
To smite the powerless savage. " Stay thy 

stroke ! " 
De Soto cried : '* Back to the town and bid them 
Meet me at Ulah's grave." 

Alvar. But is he wounded? 

PoR. Ay, to the death, I fear: he had not 
reeled 
Unless the blow were mortal. 

Alvar. Couldst thou leave him 

Alone to wrestle with that brawny chief? 

PoR. Wounded or dying, he's an overmatch 
For any single foe. 

Alvar. I will avenge him, 

Tho' all this fated continent run blood. 

Por. For men like him, there's no revenge 
but tears. 
From youth Fve fronted all the forms of death 
And given my forehead to the battle axe. 
But never, never, sank my soul till now. 



176 De Soto. 

Alvar. Lead on. 

PoR. The babe whose finger fails to crush 
A flower, may lead Porcallo now. — This way. 

{Exeunt.) 



Scene VI. (Night. Ulah's grave, Mississippi. 
Enter De Soto, Tnscahiza, grappling.) 

De S. {holding him a moment.) 
Behold her grave ! — Chief, I could smite thee 

now, 
As I have sworn — but take another chance, 
And use it well. {Throwing him off.) 

I will not touch my sword — 
We meet on equal footing, knife to knife. 

Tus. Give me a moment's rest — thy lion 
grasp 
Upon my throat has robbed me of my breath. 
De S. Rest — breathe — and pray — for thou 
hast need of all. 
There liveth not the mortal whose right arm 
Crossed mine in combat — and thou knowest, 

savage. 
That I have sometimes fought. {Goes to the 
grave. ) 



De Soto. 177 

At last in Heaven ! — 
Sweet saint, remember me. 

Tus. {springing upon him.) Lie there with 

her! 
De S. {intercepting the blozv.) False heart 
— false hand. 'Tis thus thou shouldst 
have struck! {Stabs. Tuscahiza falls.) 
Tus. Exult not, Spaniard, — thou shalt follow 
soon — 
Beneath thy steel coat lies the arrow head — 
Behold that broken shaft — . Thou shalt not see 
The morning. {He dies.) 

De S. There is nothing left to conquer ! 
He said that I was wounded. {Feeling.) 

True — 'tis here. 
An arrow in my side — I felt it not — 
Tis deep. — Now, death, we're face to face at last. 
I fear thee not! {Looking at Tuscalusa.) 

How tranquilly he lies ! 
Shall I have peace like that? O what a joy 
Steals over me : before me sweeps my Hfe, 
Fleet and distinct : the mother smile shines out — 
The curate blesses me — the manuscripts 
Spread their black letters — Isabella steps 
12 



178 De Soto. 

From the stone chapel's fretted arch — the Usts 
Ring with her name — Pizarro beckons me — 
Ho, to the rescue ! — River of my soul, 
Say, wilt thou sing to sleep this brain of mine 
With all these memories ? O leave me one, — 
Endless and changeless as thy mighty song, — 
Love! — {Enter Porcallo, Alvarado, followed by 

Anasco, Gallegos, Gayton, and Spanish army.) 

Alvar. Art thou wounded? Where? 

De S. Disturb it not — 

Not for the universe ! Closer, Porcallo. 
'Tis our last battle-field. Dost thou remember 
The sunset of our first? The day was won. 
And spent with toil, I slept : thy tears awoke 

me — 
I felt thine arms around me — heard thy voice 
Whispering I should be a Conqueror. 
Have I fulfilled that early prophecy? 

PoR. A Conqueror unsullied by the stain 
Of unresisting blood. 

De S. May Heav'n confirm it ! 
Farewell, old friend, — there's many a gallant 

field 
Before thee yet: remember me whene'er 



Dc Soto. 179 

The cry is Santiago, and our banner 
Firm in the rocking war, wins victory 
From fate. 

PoR. Remember? I shall die with thee. 
De S. No, by my Knighthood, No! — I 
charge thee bear 
This message to my wife — to Isabella : 
Tell her to teach my story to my boy, 
That he may love the sire he scarcely knew, — 
Tell her to live for him: — then add but this — 
Amidst temptation, danger and despair, 
I kept our vow ! 
' Alvar. The fleet is in the river. 
De S. Ha ! — say you so ? — War's music be 
their welcome, — 
What word? 

Alvar. Gonzalo brings it — lo, he comes ! 

{Enter Gonzalo.) 
De S. Is Isabella well? — I'll hear the worst. 
There is a curse unspoken in thy face. 
GoN. She's dead. 

De S. O, God! how desolate the earth has 
grown, 
How sweet the skies that hold her! 



i8o De Soto. 

{Taking him aside.) Well? — 

GoN. Thy son — 

De S. I am his father ! — Dost thou fear to 
speak, 
When I dare listen? 

GoN. Dead. 

De S. The cup is full ! — 

GoN. You bleed. 

De S. Ay, father, you have made me bleed. — 
Alvar (taking him aside), have masses said at 

Ulah's grave. 
And plant a cross of stone there, that its shadow 
May sometimes sweep the river. — 

Men of Spain, 
In him behold your leader — by the cross, 
I charge you swear to follow without question 
Where'er he leads. {They kneel.) 

Omnes. We swear! 

De S. {to Alvar,) Lead them to Spain. 

Alvar. And thou? 

De S. {Plucking out the arrow.) Out, min- 
ister of mercy, out ! 
Blest be the hand that sent thee. — / stay here! 



De Soto. 



i8i 



My children, cluster round me, — I am dying. 
Bright be your lot amid the groves of Spain, 
New honors and true loves. For me — but 

this : — 
Deep in that mighty river be my grave, 
Its foam my shroud, its ceaseless voice any dirge, 
Its everlasting wave my monument! (He dies.) 




BURIAL OF DE SOTO. 



1 82 Cromwell. 



THE EXECUTION OF CHARLES I. 

(From Cromzvcll.) 

ActV. 
Scene H. Whitehall. Morning. Rnmford, 
Egerton. 

Rum. Wouldst thou believe it, Brother Eger- 
ton, 
Hugh Peters, once a shining light 'mongst us, 
Hath sent a Bishop to the fated Sovereign ? 

Eger. Thou art mistaken. Not he surely. 
He hath too good a grace at holding forth, 
Abominateth prelacy too much, 
For such work. 

Rum. Nay, man, they are closeted 

Together yonder, haply practicing 
Confession, sacrament and all such rites 
Of Baal. 

Eger. Confusion to them both ! 

Rum. Amen ! 

Eger. Does Pharaoh die to-day? 

Rum. His scaffold's up. 



Cromwell. 183 

Tis a bright day. The crowd will see him well. 
I hope we shall be near him. 

Eger. Trust for that, 

We shall be next the scaffold. 

Rum. Do you think 

The man will bear him bravely ? It will try 
The royal pride. Methinks that you or I 
Would not look over-well upon a scaffold. 

Eger. Verily, 

Not over- well. 

Rum. It is an awkward testing place, 
E'en for the elect. What chance, then, for a 
sinner? 

(Enter Charles, leading the Bishop out, and 

receiving mutually his blessing.) 

Said I not so — the Bishop and the King? 

Charles. Good neighbors, leave us to our- 
selves awhile. 
Rum. Shall I discourse with him ? 
Eger. 'Twere unction 

wasted. 
Rum. There's something fiendish in his eye 
that says so. 
i Exeunt Runiford, Egerton.) {Enter Leslie.) 



1 84 Cromwell. 

Charles. Where have you been? At break 

of day I found 
Your pallet empty. 

Les. I have been ±o walk, 
To breathe the morning air. 

Charles. You are pale and haggard. 

Les. To see you calmly sleeping all night 

long, 
Placidly breathing, 'tho' each breath brought 

nearer 
This fatal morn — such sights may make one 

haggard. 
Charles. My peace with Heaven is made, my 

foes I pardon, — 
All, even Cromwell. Death is very near. 
My hours, my minutes, numbered. I must seem 
As trim as may be. Am I well attired ? 
I have put on an under-robe, lest cold 
Should make me shiver, and men call it fear. 
Thou shalt not blush for thy lost monarch, 

Leslie. 
I feel the high, hereditary blood, the spirit of my 

murdered ancestors. 
Stir at my heart! Mark when the axe is o'er 

me, — 



Cromzvell. 185 

Not an eye-lash shall quiver. Weep not, Leslie. 
Preserve this packet for my wife and him — 
The son who yet shall occupy my throne. 
Tell them my story, it is at its close. 

Les. My King, I shall not live to tell the tale. 
'Round Eastern monarchs hecatombs are slain. 
Upon the Indian's grave his swarthy wife. 
Kindling a pyre, ends her brief widowhood ; 
And there shall be one cavalier, at least, 
With soul enough not to survive his king. 

Charles. My son! 

Les. {Kneeling) Thy blessing? {Enter 

Pearson and Hie of men.) 

Pear. Sire, the hour is come. 

Les. Give these to Pearson, he is merciful. 

Charles {to Pearson.) Kind sir, I ask a 
favor — 'tis the last 
And easily granted. Send this open packet 
Safe to my queen and children. It contains 
Matters that cannot hurt your Parliament, — 
Mere toys of love, and frail memorials. 
And pray you let me have a velvet pall, 
A leaden coffin with a leaden scroll. 
{Whisper) And guard my body as you would 
a soldier's. 



1 86 CromzvclL 

Thou unaerstandest? Shrink not, sir, 'tis all. 
Charles Stuart is ready, gentlemen, move on. 
And now witness, England, how a king should 
die! {Exeunt.) 



Scene III. {Croinzveirs. The crozvn of Eng- 
land veiled upon a table. An archway cur- 
tained off in rear. Enter Pearson and Bess 
zveeping. ) 

Pear. Where is thy father? 

Bess. He hath watched all night, 

And sleepeth now. {Enter Cromwell.) 

Crom. Not now — not yet ! — to-morrow ! 
Up, up a hill, a hill as high as Bashan, 
My spirit toils. Step after step I mount. 
Now gleams the topmost within my grasp. 
Now sweeps the cloud atwixt us. Upward still 
Chase the illusive phantom tho' the heart 
Break 'gainst the beating rib. Thy business, 
Pearson ? 

Pear. Wilt thou be present at the execution? 

Crom. As wax before the fire, so melt the 
wicked : 
He shakes the hills, the mountains and they reel. 



Cromwell. 1S7 

Pear. Wilt thou be present at the execution? 

Crom. No, not for England ! Post my Iron- 
sides 
Close to the scaffold. I shall watch from here. 
If Fairfax offer thee resistance, fight, 
Fight to the knife ! I shall be present then — 
A rushing like the rush of many waters ! 
Is that the people gathering? 

Pear. They come : 

I must away to do my duty. 

Crom. Do it, 

Tho' heaven, affrighted, open to its core. (Exit 

Pearson.) 
O, were I free among the dead, the slain, 
That lie in graves, whom thou no more remem- 

berest ! 
Thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves, 
I am shut up — Thy fierce wrath sweepeth me. 
Lover and friend, hast thou forsaken me? 
Poor King, thy part is easier played than mine! 
(Lifting the veil from the crozvn.) 
Behold the crown of England! It has pressed 
The head of many a hoary villain — shot 
Dismay from every jewel! It is gold, 



1 88 Cromwell. 

As rich and beautiful as art can make it. 
Where are the brows it once encircled? Dust. 
Where the proud head that lately wore it ? Soon 
A rolling thing before the pathless whirlwind ! 
Barbaric emblem of a barbarous age, 
Hast thou not had thy day — aye, and a long 

one? 
'Tis time thy reign were over. 

Bess. ' They are coming. 

Look! 

Crom. Let me look upon the crown, not him ! 
Bess. Is that the King — that pale, that tran- 
quil man ? 
Crom. Tis he ! to haunt me to the last ! 
Bess. They enter 

The gallery. The regiments are forming 
Around the scaffold, driving back the throng 
That hem it hard. The King is on the platform. 
He waves his hand to speak. 

Crom. He must not speak. 

Ten words now spoken were ten thousand deaths ! 
Ten words would make the city one vast tomb ! 
He must not speak. 

Bess. They force the people back. 

Thev cannot hear him. 



Cromzvell. 189 

Crom. Well for them they cannot! 

Bess. Father, this scene appalls me ! Who is he 
Now kneeling to the King? 'Tis Leslie ! 

Crom. Ay ! 

Here, thou pale trembler, hide thy forehead here. 
I'll face it, tho' the vision smite me dead! 

(Throws open the curtain, revealing scaffold.) 
The block ! The axe ! The executioner ! — 
Charles Stuart, thou art a king upon thy scaffold ! 
Thy crown and throne gave no such majesty. 
Calmly he bows his head unto the block — 
God ! can they smite him there so meekly bending ! 
Hold off thine axe, thou damned headsman, hold ! 
{Lets the curtain fall.) 

{Tottering forward.) 
O, this is worse than all the gates of Gaza ! 
Is it a dim, dreadful dream, or is it real ? 
Bess, is that scaffold stained — is the King dead ? 
Hark there are heavy footsteps in the lobby. 
{Enter Pearson and guard, with Leslie 
wounded.) 

Pear. (In a whisper.) Leslie ! As we stood 
He slew the headsman, ere we could prevent ; 
Then sternly stood at bay. 

Crom. It was like him. 



190 Cromivcll. 

Peak. Rum ford and Egerton avenged the 

blow. 
Crom. a warrior of the ancient Roman mould ! 

{Enter Harrison and I ret on ziith guard.) 
Bess. Leslie ! 

Les. Never ! — You said there was a land 

Beyond the grave where we might meet again, 
There shall I wait for you. Farewell to foe and 

friend ! 
Farewell, sweet cousin Bess! {He dies.) 
Bess. Father, he's dead. 

{She falls insensible upon the body.) 
Crom. O, Bess, my young, my beautiful, my 
brave ! — 
Pearson, my eyes are dim : get me that crown. 
{Enter Runiford, Egerton, and Ironsides.) 
Ye men of England, we have lived for this. 

{Dashing down the crozmi.) 
Crash, damned symbol! Rot and crumble there! 
Leap, ye high hills ; ye skipping mountains, leap ! 
At last the freeman's foot is on the crown ! 
{Tableaux.) 

{Curtain falls.) 

{Exeunt onuies.) 



COMEDIES. 



NOTE. 

Mr. Miles left in manuscript not less than a dozen 
Comedies and Farces. At least five of these were 
written for Mr. John T. Ford, Holliday Street Theater, 
Baltimore, under whose management they were put on 
the stage with merited success. 



192 



Senor Valient e. 193 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 

(ScTior V alien fc.) 

Tliere are many difficulties in the path of 
American Comedy. The assimilation of thought 
— produced by the reading of the same books and 
the same newspapers, and by the now almost uni- 
versal opportunities of travel and culture — has 
virtually abolished that independent personal de- 
velopment and those individual peculiarities upon 
which Comedy is partly based. Repubhcs like 
ours do not afford the varieties of class, costume 
and character so favorable to dramatic effects. 
It is also quite as difficult for the Stage as for the 
Bench to act without a precedent ; and quite as 
arduous to interpret a new part as to create one. 
There is material enough in the contrasts of East- 
ern, Southern and Western life — in the varieties 
of our European population — in the comic or 
tragic element abundantly furnished by the Afri- 
can : but the material is scarcely yet sufficiently 
concentrated in any one Metropolis, — New York, 



i94 Sefior Valiente. 

perhaps, excepted, — to present a perfect field for 
that observation and study which ordinarily pre- 
cede success. It is needless to apologize for the 
many imperfections of " Seiior Valiente," but if 
it prove a step in the right direction I shall not 
regret the labor it has cost. 



Sehor Valiente. 195 

SENOR VALIENTE. 
Act I. 

Clem, (zmth dignity.) A spy ! I was a servant 
in your Father's house before you were born. I 
was with your Mother when she died in a for- 
eign land. I followed you, an orphaned child, 
across the sea, for I had sworn to watch over 
you. 

Lille (sharply). You have kept your oath. 
You do watch me with a vengeance. You watch 
me when I sit with Pa — you watch me when I 
walk with Manny — you watch me when I eat — 
you watch me when I sleep — watch me when I 
wake — you're watchman enough for this whole 
Metropolis. I'm sick of it. I might as well be 
in Spain or Turkey, with a hook-nosed duenna, 
or a thick-lipped blackamoor. A pretty state of 
things for Fifth Avenue. 

Clem, (very significantly.) Some folks need 
watching, Mistress Lille, even though they live 
in Fifth Avenue. 



196 Scfwr Valiente. 

Lille. (Rings a hell.) So you have passed 
from impertinence to insult. I wish you old fam- 
ily servants had died out before I was born. 

Clem. They'll soon be gone. 

Lille. When? — Can't you name the day? 

Clem. When masters and mistresses have lost 
the little likeness they still keep to gentlemen 
and ladies. 

i]i Jjc If; jjc 

Lille. How shall I ever tell him? I know 
I'm blushing dreadfully. It's strange I should, 
too, in my second winter — few girls do in their 
first. 

(Enter Flintleigh zvith his hat on, putting on 
his gloves.) 

Flint. Well, Lille, what it is? — (a pause.) 
Speak quick. It's noon now — there's a meeting 
of the Salt River Railroad at two, and of the Can- 
nibal Conversion Society at three. You know 
I'm President of the one and Treasurer of the 
other — so speak quick. Besides, the devil's to 
pay in Wall Street, and between gambling and 
the Gospels I've a tough time of it. 



Scnor Valient c. 197 

Lille. Is he worth having? 

Flint. He drives his two trotters — hunts 
his two Spanish pointers — carries his two bottles 
— keeps his two — ahem ! — yachts — sports a 
moustache a rEinpcreur — sonnetizes in the 
Home Journal — wears yellow kids, and owes 
from Grace Church to Castle Garden. That's a 
woman's idea of a man worth having — isn't it ? 

(They cross.) 

Lille. (Rubbing her hands.) Yes — delight- 
ful — and then his family. A i, you know — 
General Caverly. 

Flint. American families are very like Amer- 
ican firms — A I to-day — B flat to-morrow. Are 
you going to have him ? 

Lille. Well — he loves me — dreadfully. 
I'd marry him to escape his attentions. 
* * * * 

Lille. Why, you're his bosom friend. 

Man. There's one little difference between 
bosom friend masculine and bosom friend femi- 
nine — we hear secrets, you tell them. 



19^ Sefior Valiente. 

Man. Excuse me, but why do all yoil women 

run mad after men who scorn you? 

Lille. Because we'd rather have masters than 

slaves. 

* * * * 

Lille. What can I say? If the old people 
don't come down, what could we live on — love 
and lyrics ? 

Man. Why not? If more dared venture that 
diet, it would be a better world. 

Lille. What, — sit still and have you count- 
ing your fingers — tearing your hair — staring 
at the ceiling — dashing convulsively at the ink- 
stand day and night ? Or should I do the prose of 
our establishment, by trying my hand at your 
stockings, when my anms were not at war with 
the wash-tub? 

Man. Brava, Lille ! That's the true twang of 
the times ! Wouldn't it be monstrous for two 
young hearts to go on beating abreast through 
God's beautiful world, without old people to help 
them ? The turtle doves do it — but we poor 
human things dare not. 



Mary's Birthday. i99 



MARY'S BIRTHDAY. 

Lord. I beg you, my clear Mr. Hawthorne 

Haw. Yes, sir ; I feel that whenever I put my 
name to paper, I put my hand into your pocket ; 
but in spite of all, when the test comes, and the 
needy beg in the name of the Owner of all things, 
it seems to matter little from whose wallet the 
crust is drawn. 



-M * 



Haw. Mistress Alice, although an act of love 
and an act of charity are synonymous in our 
church service, yet it is wiser not to confound 
them in common practice. 

Lord. (Taking Vernon aside.) Vernon, in 
mercy to Mary Stillworth —in justice to your 
own honor — let this little episode with Alice die 
to-day. Whatever vows — 

Ver. There are none. It was our misfortune 
to meet, our folly to love, and it is now our duty 
to part'. But, to borrow your own language, 



200 Maryys Birthday. 

brother, — the flowers do not cease to bloom be- 
cause the plowshare must soon pass over them. 

\'er. And before spring you will have coaxed 
another fool to lay his heart at your feet. 

Alice. And is there any better resting-place 

for a man's heart than at a true woman's feet? 
* * * * 

Ver. (Returns.) George Lordly, you have 
won. Your manhood and gold against my pov- 
erty and youth. You have won a battle, but take 
care lest you lose a heart — a brother's heart at 
that. 

Lord. Pshaw, Vernon, I am used to losing 
hearts. I once even went so far as to lose my own 
— but it was picked up and sent back a little 
bruised and broken. Don't threaten nic with the 
loss of a heart — a human heart. Why, brother, 
I should miss it less than a sparrow from yonder 
tree top. Titus fretting over his lost day was less 
contemptible than a man of my age fretting over 
a lost heart. 

>K ^ ^: ^ 

Alice. (In tears.) ]\Iore than that ; I have 
taught him to despise me. 

Haw. And if he should despise you? Look 



Mary's Birthday. 201 

up, my child. Yonder bounds the sun above the 
hills, as if the Grand Master himself had come 
to watch his world awhile, and sent his sentinel 
stars to sleep. Tears, like the rain, are followed 
by the sunshine. The hand of the Great Con- 
soler is sure to paint his promised rainbow on 
the clouds, a sign for the deluge to cease. 

.ic >K * * 

Jane. If fathers' heads all turned with their 
daughters' heels 

Beale. Well, Jane Jones? 

Jane. ^ladmen would be dreadfully in the 
majority. 

Jane. Have you ever witnessed a romance in 

real Uf e ? 

Mary. There is no romance worth naming out 

of real life. 

-^c * >i= =^ 

Lord. He is here. This match-making's a 
very heart-breaking business— that's why women 
like it, I suppose. 

^ ♦ * * 

Mary. Has she stung you, Vernon ? Has she 
driven you from her side, that you fly to me for 
comfort? Your cheek is flushed — your eye is 



202 Mary's Birthday. 

flashing. Beware how you urge, in a momentary 
pique, a step, that, once taken, is irrevocable. 

Ver. I am sick of these " bewares." (Rises.) 
It seems to be my brother's pecuhar function to 
mutter ''Beware! beware!" wherever I go, or 
whatever I do, and you have learned to echo him. 
I am not a child, to be scared by a raven's croak- 
ing. Yet even he would change his note for 
once, and sing — " Marry, Marry! " And know, 
Mary Stillworth, that it is to-day or never — 

Mary. Never! let it be then. (Rises.) By 
what right dare you propose to-day or never? 
Suppose I should prefer to-morrow or next day, 
or a week hence. Suppose I should like a new 
gown, or a new head-dress. Suppose I should 
like a month to test our reconciliation? Would 
not your sublime majesty accord me one of those 
feminine prerogatives ? 

* * * * 

Mary. Why, Beale, you are ill ? You seem to 
have the ague. 

Beale. I ham hovercome. 

Mary. By what ? 

Beale, Hovercome by a crisis — a crisis in 



Mary's Birthday. '203 

the 'istory of this 'ouse. Something's 'appened, 
Miss Stillworth. I'll be shot if I do tell what's 
'appened, and I begin to be hafraid I'll be shot 
if I don't. 

^ ^ ^ ^ 

Lord. (Rising.) What has happened?^ You 
are pale as a ghost. 

Mary. I have heard a voice from the grave. 
Lord. What has shaken you so terribly ? 
Mary. (Controlling herself.) There was 
nothing terrible in this voice from the grave, this 
music from the other world; it is but a sweet, 
strange story. 

Lord. You have been dreaming. 
Mary. Then interpret the dream. (They sit 
again on the sofa.) There was once a man who 
held an office of trust, who lived beyond his 
means, who gambled in the vain hope of retriev- 
ing his fortunes, who once, in a moment of de- 
spair and want, defrauded the bank over which 
he presided. 

Lord. (Aside, communingly.) Has Haw- 
thorne betrayed the whispered trust of dying peni- 
tence? (Laughing.) Well, girl, it needs no 



2 3-1 Mary's Birthday. 

ghost from the grave to tell us that. Bank rob- 
bery is no miracle. 

Mary. The miraculous part has yet to come. 
Hear me on. The president was the true crim- 
inal, but the clerk, who had been the dupe, was 
the only rictim — the victim by his own free 
choice and act. It needed but his own word to 
dear him — that word was never spoken. It 
needed even all his intellect to conceal his inno- 
cence, and he tasked his ingenuity to prove his 
guilt. Innocent, unasked, unbought, silencing 
the confession of the contrite thief with a reckless 
laugh that seemed amlntious of disgrace, he 
stqiped between the culprit and his doom, and 
sacrificed his own hcMior to save his friend's. 
(Rising as he rises, and sinking slowly to her 
knee.) The president of that bank was my father 
— the clerk who saved him was you, George 



Abou Hassan. 205 



ABOU HASSAN. 



^loTH. yi. Who keeps open house, when the 
day comes to lock it, 
Must look for the key in a creditor's pocket. 



The miser exults in his gold bags, 
The sage in his wisdom is blest ; 

But in purple and gold, or in old rags, 
Abou Hassan's chief joy is his jest. 



Abou. We'll say that you're suddenly sick — 
indigestion. 
Convulsions, hysterics, cramp-colic, congestion. 
Moth. 'M. Xo, the Queen would be sure to 
send after her pet. 
And so we'd be caught in a nice little net. 
Send word that Fm dying — nobody will fret. 
She can nurse me to-night and to-morrow report 
That T've suddenly rallied to comfort the court. 



2o6 Abou Hassan. 

Mes., (loftily.) No possible pain that a man 
ever felt, 
No possible blow that a girl ever 'dealt, 
Compares with the extract of agony wrung 
From a woman when forced into holding her 
tongue. 

(Goes to table. Carousal.) 

Zara, (taking Mother M. apart.) I know these 

gentlemen, Ma ; it won't hurt them 

If we get up some nice little game to divert them. 

Let's be at it ; and soon that big bully shall know 

What a man may expect when a woman's his foe. 



M. OF C. An embassy from India in the hall 
Craves audience. 

Abou. Indians ? Kill them all ! 
We'll have no peace until the last one's shot. 
On with the dance. Ohe ! the coffee's hot ! 



A general amnesty. 

Omnes. That's what we wantf 

Abou. Let us have peace all round, and no 
more bother; 
A rebel once won back is tzvice a brother. 



Aboil Hassan. 



207 



Abou. 
Zara. 
Abou. 

Zara. 

Abou. 



Duo. 
Will you wed me. love, at e'en ? 

Where, O where shall we meet? 
Where the willows weeping lean 

O'er the fountain at their feet ; 
Where our morn of love was spent 

'Mid the myrtles and the flowers 
Where the violet never bent 

Under other steps than ours. 
Atiibo. 
Fail not, love, to meet me there, 

At the twilight's purple close, 
When the dew-drop's virgin tear 

Gilds the lily and the rose. 



Zar. I hear and obey. 

(Aside.) Poor Abou, I'm really tired of teas- 
ing him, 
I'd rather be thinking of wedding and pleasing 

him. 
My curse on all Princes ! Hurrah for the day 
When Caliph and King shall have both passed 
awav ! 



GiAF. The first step will be to provide 
Retribution in kind. 

Mes. Make him marry some witch 
Who will carefully keep him in check with her 

switch. 
Some desperate she-devil, lame, ugly, and old. 



2o8 Aboti Hassan. 

With a claw that can scratch and a tongue that 
can scold. 



Mes. (to Giaf., sotto voce.) Shall I punch in 
his head ? Shall 
I give him a cuff? 

Giaf. Let him marry, that's punishment, 

surely, enough. 
Mes. But she's pretty ; and what I detest is to 
see 
A pretty girl marry any other than me. 



Chorus. 

What's the matter, Abou Hassan, 
Roaring like a bull of Bashan, 
What has put you in a passion ? 

Abou. 

Fiends attacked me, 
Woolled and whacked me, 
Hewed and hacked me, 
Wronged and racked me. 

Chorus. 

It's a shame, a mortal shame, sir. 
Come and tell us what their names were 
They'll be made to answer soon. 

Abou. 

Take me, friends, unto your keeping, 
Tho' I'm nearly blind with weeping, 
Let me see the great Haroun. 



Aboil Hassan. 209 

Solo and Chorus. 
Let j j^jj^ [ see the great Haroim. 

Bis. What's the matter, Abou Hassan, 
What has put him in a passion ? 

Chorus. 

Tell us, tell us why you're battered, 
Why your dress is torn and tattered, 
Why your face with blood is spattered? 

Abou. 
Demons found me, grinned around me, 
Beat and bound me, then discrowned me. 

Chorus. 
It's a shame, a mortal shame, sir. 
Come and tell us what their names were; 
They'll be made to answer soon. 

Abou. 
Am I dreaming, am I waking? 
Every bone in me is aching. 
Let me see the great Haroun. 

Solo and Chorus. 

Let ] j^^ [ see the great Haroun. 

Bis. What's the matter, Abou Hassan, 
Bis. Roaring like a bull of Bashan? 

Solo and Chorus. 
Let \ J^^ I see the great Haroun. 













2IO 



ESSAYS, ORATIONS, ETC. 



NOTE. 



Mr, Miles was a constant contributor to the best 
American reviews of his time, although his articles were 
seldom signed. His name has been kept before the 
public chiefly by his novels, which, though quite respect- 
able, are by no means his highest work. His power as a 
literary critic was of the first order ; his essays are full 
of force and grace. The one, a study of Hamlet, has 
every element of an English classic. 



A Study of Hamlet. 213 



A STUDY OF HAMLET. 



In all of Shakespeare's finer plays, there is sure 
to be, at least, one master mind among the char- 
acters. Lear, even in grotesque dilapidation, is a 
master mind, lago is another, Macbeth, or rather 
his Demon Lady, is another; but the tragedies 
themselves are far from owing their chief dra- 
matic force and interest to this individual ascend- 
ancy. In the calm, vindictive envy of lago, in the 
rage and desolation of Lear, in the remorse of 
Macbeth, passion or plot is the governing motive 
of interest ; but there is never a storm in " Ham- 
let " over which the " noble and most sovereign 
reason " of the young prince is not as visibly 
dominant as the rainbow, the crowning grace 
and glory of the scene. Richard is the mind near- 
est Hamlet in scope and power; but it is the 
jubilant wickedness, the transcendent dash and 
courage of the last Plantagenet, that rivet his hold 
on an audience ; whereas, the most salient phase 



214 ^4 Study of Hamlet. 

of Hamlet's character is his superb intellectual 
superiority to all comers, even to his most dan- 
gerous assailant, madness. The fundamental 
charm of Hamlet is its amazing eloquence; its 
thoughts are vaster than deeds, its eloquence 
mightier than action. The tragedy, in its most 
imposing aspect, is a series of intellectual en- 
counters. The Crusaders of Ashby de la Zouche, 
engaging all the challengers, is not more pictur- 
esque than this Desdichado of Denmark con- 
secutively overthrowing every antagonist, from 
Polonius in the Castle to Laertes in the grave. 

But the difficulty of representing this ! The 
enormous difficulty of achieving a true tragic suc- 
cess, less by the passions and trials than by the 
pure intellectual splendor of the hero! The al- 
most superhuman difficulty of imparting dra- 
matic interest to a long war of words — for the 
part of Hamlet is well nigh twice the length of 
any other on the stage, — the almost superhuman 
power whereby the prince, instead of degenerat- 
ing into a mere senior wrangler, is so exalted by 
the witchery of speech, that the lit brow of the 
young academician for once outshines the war- 



A Study of HaniJef. 215 

rior's crest, for once compels a more than equal 
homage from the masses ! 

Perhaps Shakespeare never asked himself the 
question, never precisely recognized the difficulty. 
But, as the vision of the unwritten Drama loomed 
vaguely before him, he must have been conscious 
of a summons to put forth all his strength. With 
a central figure of such subtle spirituality, with 
a plot subordinating action to eloquence, or rather 
substituting eloquence for action, the great dram- 
atist instinctively employed a Saracenic richness 
and variety of detail. The structure of Macbeth 
is Egyptian, massive as the pyramids, or Thebes ; 
of Othello, unadorned, symmetrical, classic; of 
Lear, wild, unequal, fantastic, straggling as a 
Druid Grove ; but Hamlet resembles some limit- 
less Gothic Cathedral with its banners and effi- 
gies, its glooms and floods of stained light, and 
echoes of unending dirges. I never read " Act 
I. Scene I. Elsinore. A platform before the 
Castle. Francisco at his post. Enter to him Ber- 
nardo/' without, somehow, beholding the myriad- 
minded poet at his desk, pale, peaceful, conscien- 
tious, yet pausing as in the Stratford bust, with 



2i6 • A Study of Hamlet. 

lips apart, and pen and eye awhile uplifted, as 
organists pause that silence may settle into a 
deeper hush, — the longest pause at such a mo- 
ment that Shakespeare ever made. But though 
not embarrassed by the difficulty, he must surely 
have been awed by the immensity of his under- 
taking. For the fundamental idea of the tragedy 
is not only essentially non-dramatic, but pecul- 
iarly liable to misinterpretation ; since any marked 
predominance of the intellectual over the animal 
nature is constantly mistaken for weakness. 

The difference between a strong man and a 
weak one, though indefinable, is infinite. The 
prevalent view of Hamlet is, that he is weak. 
We hear him spoken of as the gentle prince, the 
doomed prince, the meditative prince, but never 
as the strong prince, the great prince, the terrible 
prince. He is commonly regarded as more of a 
dreamer than a doer; something of a railer at 
destiny; a blighted, morbid existence, unequal 
either to forgiveness or revenge ; delaying action 
till action is of no use, and dying the victim of 
mere circumstance and accident. The exquisite 
metaphor of Goethe's about the oak tree and the 



A Study of Hamlet. 217 

vase predestined for a rose, crystallizes and per- 
petuates both the critical and the popular estimate 
of Hamlet. The Wilhelm Meister view is, prac- 
tically, the only view; a hero without a plan, 
pushed on by events alone, endowed more prop- 
erly with sentiments than with a character, — in 
a word, zveak. But the Hamlet of the critics and 
the Hamlet of Shakespeare are two different per- 
sons. A close review of the play will show that 
Hamlet is strong, not weak, — that the basis of 
his character is strength, illimitable strength. 
There is not an act or an utterance of his, from 
first to last, which 'is not a manifestation of power. 
Slow, cautious, capricious, he may sometimes be, 
or seem to be; but always strong, always large- 
souled, always resistless. 

* * iK ^ 

With too much reason, Hamlet had lost all 
trust in his mother; and when we cease to trust 
our mothers, we cease to trust humanity. Hamlet 
belonged to that middle circle of the Sons of 
Light, who became cynics, instead of villains, 
in adversity. Characters of perfect sincerity, of 
exhaustless tenderness, of ready trust, when once 



2i8 A Study of Hamlet. 

deceived by the few that were dearest, become 
irrevocably mistrustful of all. Your common- 
place neighbor who knows himself a sham, ac- 
cepts, perhaps prefers, a society of shams ; has 
no idea of being very true to anybody, or of 
anybody's being very true to him ; leads a sham 
life and dies a sham death, as near as the latter 
achievement is possible, leaving a set of sham 
mourners behind him. But your heart, whose 
perfect insight was blinded only by its perfect 
love, once fooled in its tenderest faith, must be 
either saint or cynic ; must belong either to God 
or to doubt forevermore. A blighted gentleness 
is as savage in the expression of its scorn as your 
born misanthropist or your natural villain ; save 
that the hatred of the one is for vice, and cant, 
and cunning, of the other for credulity and vir- 
tue ; save that the last is cruel in word and deed, 
the first in word alone. 

* ij: * * 

By the inexorable logic of events, Hamlet is 
ranged against the throne, the conspicuous head 
and front of a moral opposition, an inevitable, 
though passive, rebel. If Horatio is loyal, no 



A Study of Hamlet. 219 

matter what their previous friendship, they are 
thenceforth foes. One must have Hved through 
civil war to appreciate the dexterous nicety with 
which Hamlet feels his former friend. 

My lord, I came to see your father's funeral. 
Ham. I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow-student ; 

I think it was to see my mother's wedding. 
HoR. Indeed, my lord, it follow'd hard upon. 

Even this little, from a man like Horatio, is 
enough; they are on the same side, rebels both. 
Quick as lightning the glance is given and re- 
turned ; he can trust Marcellus and Bernardo, 
too, and bares his heart to them with a fierce sigh 
of relief. 

Thrift, thrift, Horatio ! the funeral baked meats 
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables. 
Would I had met my dearest foe in Heaven 
Ere ever I had seen that day, Horatio. 
My father, — methinks I see my father. 

* >!C if. >fc 

Whatever may be thought of the words, the 
action — that doomed figure, crouching over its 
tables in the dim midnight, — is a flash of positive 
madness, brief as lightning, but as terrible, too. 
In this moment of supreme trial, his mind gives 
way : the remainder of the act is a struggle to 



2 20 A Study of Hamlet. 

restore the lost equilibrium. And in all the an- 
nals of tragedy, there is nothing half so frightful 
as this tremendous conflict of a godlike reason 
battling for its throne against Titanic terror and 
despair. 

'i* ^ 't* ^ 

The walking ghost of a murdered king, fresh 
from the glare of penal fires, swearing an only 
son to vengeance, must be quite as trying to the 
soul of innocence as the chimeras of remorse to 
the nerves of guilt. If Hamlet's reason is mo- 
mentarily dethroned, it is only to reassert its 
supremacy — only to pass triumphantly through 
the ordeal of delirious reaction. 

^ ^ *}* 'F* 

The future is vague and hopeless, but, come 
what may, he means to be master of the situation. 
His manner must necessarily change, but he will 
mask the change with madness — an easy mask 
for one whose whole life is spent in holding real 
madness at bay, — whose reason would be lost 
in dark abysses of despair, but for the quenchless 
truth and splendor of an imagination which en- 
circles and upholds him like an outstretched 
angel's wing. 



Reverence. 221 



REVERENCE.! 

The Philomathean Society, by whom I am 
invited here, must be, in part, responsible for 
the demands I am about to make on your patience 
and attention. In their wilHngness to honor me, 
they were sHghtly deficient in charity to you ; 
and — if such a stale profession may be believed 
— I really feel much embarrassed. 

There was a time, in days gone by, when I 
appeared with more confidence on these very 
boards. For then, it seems to me, there was a 
remorseless critic, armed with a pen, sharp as the 
sword of Saladin, with which whole pages were 
swept away, and half the young brain's harvest 
cut down, again and again, until by repeated 
shearing, like little girls' hair, it sprouted forth 
in proper strength and thickness. And, though 
I am assured this veto power is not exercised 
nowadays, I must lament, in chorus with you, 



1 From an Oration before the Philomathean Society. 



22 2 Reverence. 

that I have not still the benefit of it. I feel pretty 
sure, by way of sample, that the Httle girl's hair, 
the young brain's harvest, and the sword of 
Saladin itself would not have escaped that same 
unsparing and avenging goose-quill. The exem- 
plary obedience with which we submitted to those 
awful inroads, brings me to the subject I have 
chosen for my remarks — I mean. Reverence. 

^K ^ 'K ¥ 

We are dependent beings, born to revere : — 
something to reverence, is the necessary craving 
of our souls, and we are incomplete unless that 
craving is gratified. But, undirected by inspira- 
tion, our fallen nature is almost as prone to rever- 
ence vice as virtue. Temptation advances with 
civilization, until, yielding to the enchantment of 
sin, the idol is dignified and beautified to justify 
admiration. '' lo Bacche ! " resounds at the feast 
of the Eleusinian Ceres — the orgies of Cotytto 
eclipse the pale revels of the Cyprian Queen, 
and the mysteries of the Pyramids are renewed 
for the Epicurean. And after this desecration of 
Olympus has taken place, the nation may flourish, 
Anacreon sing, Demosthenes speak, and Plato 



Reverence. 223 

spin his phantom Repubhc ; and Cicero may thun- 
der against Catiline and Mark Antony — and 
Virgil and Horace may embalm or corrupt an 
Augustan age, but the spirit of true Reverence 
is expiring, and the worm of decay is already at 

work. 

* * * * 

It is the religious element in us, reverencing 
God in the beauty and majesty of his works, 
that produces whatever is beautiful in literature, 
art, and society. It was the spirit of Reverence 
that drew the Troglodytes from their caves and 
adorned the banks of the Nile, from Meroe and 
the Isle of Flowers to the Delta, with forms of 
everlasting beauty. It was the spirit of Reverence 
that made the Jews God's chosen people, and 
built them a city which Jehovah alone had power 
to overthrow. 

It was the spirit of Reverence that gave energy 
to the indolent Hindoo, and displayed the mon- 
strous bulk of the Varahavatar and the vast ex- 
cavations of Canarah. 

It was the spirit of Reverence that peopled 
every mountain and valley in Greece with the 



2 24 Reverence. 

fair creations still invoked by modern rhymers. 
Amidst the silence and loveliness of nature they 
thought that spirits of equal beauty must be lurk- 
ing — guardian genii of the scene — gods. And 
who are father ^neas, Romulus and Egeria but 
the children of Reverence? 

The wild scenery of the North brought forth 
gods of stern might and majesty: Odin, Thor, — 
dark, icy creatures, the fathers of Alaric and At- 
tila. Yet the Scandinavian deity was but another 
form of the somber Buddha, the fantastic Fo, and 
the graceful Jupiter. 

It is the spirit of Reverence that has been the 
mother of heroes in all ages. . . . There never 
was true painter, true poet, true sculptor, true 
musician, true architect, who was not her child. 
The false artist may feign an invocation to the 
muse, but cannot soar unless he feels her divinity. 

Though our divines think they cannot be elo- 
quent in less than two hours, our lawyers in less 
than four, our Senators in less than six ; and 
though the excellence of a book or a speech is 
usually measured by its length, yet the nation 



Reverence. 225 

is not utterly insensible to the charm of brevity 
and elegance. For not long since, when those 
admirable letters and dispatches came from the 
Rio Grande, and Monterey, and Buena Vista, we 
were scarcely more delighted with the victories 
themselves than with the style which announced 
them. The following election proved that General 
Taylor had conquered two nations at once — the 
enemy's with his sword, his own with his pen. 

After such an instance of public good taste, 
we are inclined to think that we may yet have a 
national literature. With all its faults, there is 
something noble and generous in the American 
character. The blessings we enjoy under our 
Constitution are calculated to nourish a free, bold, 
manly nature, which wants only the humility of 
Reverence to make it the mother of genius. 



1-5 



226 The Pilgrims. 



THE PILGRIMS. 

Though there be something of human weak- 
ness in pride of ancestry, there is much of filial 
reverence ; — a lively contemplation of noble ac- 
tions is a strong incentive to equal exertion ; — 
the memory of the American Revolution is, next 
to religion, the best guardian of our liberties. 

;|; ;!; >|: ^ 

The history of a colony is always so interwoven 
with that of its parent country, that the career 
of the one can only be fully explained by the 
conduct of the other. 

You must be familiar with the character of 
James I, since it is well drawn by Hallam, Lin- 
gard and Bancroft, and its brighter side happily 
sketched in the fortunes of Nigel. Forgetting 
Elizabeth in four days, the nation anxiously 
awaited a sign of the future from her successor. 
The Catholic hugging a faint hope that James 
might by chance have inherited the inclinations of 
his mother : — the Puritan half believins: that a 



The Pihrims. --7 



Scottish education had secretly swayed him to the 
principles of the kirk ; — the regular clergy con- 
fidently tempting the approaching monarch with 
the golden bait of arbitrary power. The king 
yielded to the allurements of the Bishops. Then 
began, in earnest, the struggle between Preroga- 
tive and Privilege. The insolence of the Court 
was inflamed by the stubbornness of the Com- 
mons, and every fresh stretch of power awakened 
a corresponding burst of opposition. Zeal for 
prerogative had reached an alarming height under 
Elizabeth, when Heyle and Cecil insisted that her 
ability to convert her subjects' property to her 
own use, was as clear and perfect as her right 
to any revenue of the Crown ; but it fell far short 
of the madness for despotism that raged under 

James. 

* ^« >i= * 

It was natural for men who denied the divine 
rights of kings, and smarted under the tyranny 
which such a system is sure to engender, to seek 
an asyluni where its rigor would be softened or 
unfelt. The Puritan was painfully convinced 
that James and his Church were steeled against 



2 28 The Pilgrims, 

him ; — that to question the prerogative onlv 
imped its malignity. In 1608, the disciple of 
Robinson escaped to Amsterdam, where, freed 
from the petty annoyance and stern severity of 
bigotry, he enjoyed the blissful immunity of obey- 
ing unmolested the voice of conscience. But 
there was something beyond this, for which the 
exile sighed. The Puritan believed himself the 
chosen of God, favored above all men by the new 
light poured down upon his soul; he panted for 
seclusion from all intercourse with less favored 
mortals, and longed to build up a Church State 
to shine as a beacon light to the world, where 
none but the clean and godly might minister. 



Glimpses of Tuscaify. 229 



GLIMPSES OF TUSCANY. 

Grecian life, in its highest aspect, was an at- 
tempt to reproduce the perfections of a lost Eden ; 
Christian life, in its highest aspect^ is purifica- 
tion, self-denial, self-immolation, for a paradise 
which can never be reached in this world, and 
only in the next after life-long fear and trembling. 
And although we strive more or less successfully 
to substitute the joys of the spirit for those of 
the flesh, yet '' Even we ourselves, who have the 
first-fruits of the spirit, groan within ourselves, 
waiting for the adoption of the sons of God, the 
redemption of our body." After the knowledge 
of good and evil, our paradise must have no 
walls. The broad expanse of which each one of 
us may chance to be the center, bounded by the 
horizon and vaulted by the sky — the whole visi- 
ble landscape, with its fitful Hght and shade, its 
changing blight and lloom, its alternating sigh 
and song, whether subdued into use or wild as 



230 Glimpses of Tuscany. 

on the morning of the first Sabbath — this whole 
visible tmiverse is the only garden in harmony 
with the vast aspiration, the ceaseless yearning of 
Christian life. Our opened eyes would weary of 
the walled Eden, as Rasselas wearied of the Happy 
Valley. 

It is a pure and paramount joy to grapple with 
the rugged earth and bend it to your will ; a joy 
to pierce the forest to your liking and smooth a 
bare expanse into velvet lawn : of mortal joys 
perhaps the purest and most enduring. But when 
all is done? — 

Take your stand behind the Pitti Palace almost 
anywhere high up the hill, on the observatory 
itself, if you choose. All the wide valley of the 
Arno, with its circumference of cultured hills and 
woodless mountains, is before you. For thou- 
sands of years industrious generations have been 
at work on that fair panorama. Yellow villas 
are dotting all the heights ; olive trees are wrap- 
ping all the slopes in pale monotony ; the vines 
are trailing everywhere in endless procession over 
mutilated mulberries ; the long gray walls are 
solemnly parcelling out the small Tuscan farms. 



Glimpses of Tuscany. ^31 

All Florence is beneath you, with its domes and 
towers and spires, its streets and bridges, its 
memories and suggestions. The atmosphere is 
so transparent, the cultivation so perfect, that the 
area described by half the radius of vision seems 
to inclose only a vast kitchen garden. But farther 
on, the mist and haze are settling ; the enchantment 
of distance is falling; Vallambrosa, gleaming on 
its mountain's breast, turns into some mysterious 
opal ; the records traced by man through all those 
centuries are gradually erased by the quiet al- 
chemy of nature, and the same eternal story reap- 
pears as vividly as if the superscription were but 
the shadow of a dream. 

Turn to the Boboli at your feet. Do you won- 
der it is a failure — that Florence never goes 
there? They love their own little gardens dearly 
and the flowers in their windows ; for these are 
but sweet thefts from nature to embellish home. 
But for these attempts to compress universal 
beauty into a given space, for this overprizing, 
overadorning of the near^ only to be lost, or 
merged, or overlooked in the glory of the far, 
the Christian heart can have but little relish. 



232 The Governess. 



THE GOVERNESS. 

'' Now, Mrs. Fairface, I'll hear your ideas 
about that young woman who was recommended 
to me for governess." And saying so, Mr. Felix 
Fairface applied his slippered toes tenderly to the 
fender and planted his hands before him, in the 
attitude of one who is willing to listen. 

" She was of good family, so I was told," con- 
tinued Mr. Fairface, '' well bred, well educated, 
and all that sort of thing, which makes her pov- 
erty odious to her and agreeable to us. Have you 
seen her ? What does she look like — ugly, or 
otherwise ? " 

" Why, otherwise, decidedly. I was, in fact, 
rather favorably impressed with her personnel," 
replied Mrs. Fairface, who was in all respects, 
as the world goes, an elegant woman. Mrs. Fair- 
face was a tall brunette, with dark hair and a 
flashing eye. A shawl flung over her shoulders 
couldn't help falling gracefully. She v/rote a neat 



The Governess. 233 

note and knew how to seal it, and was just suffi- 
ciently traitorous to the King's English to spice 
it with ever so little of the President's French. 
'' I was also struck," pursued Mrs. Fairface, 
" with the extreme beauty and justness of her 
pronunciation, with that exact nicety of intonation 
almost peculiar to the best English families." 

Here Mr. Fairface shrugged his left shoulder : 
he always shrugged that shoulder when his wife 
waxed eloquent. '' Just give me a two-minute 
daguerreotype of her, my dear," he interposed — 
" I mean of her person. One can't tell what one's 
mind is until one knows them some time. I hope 
she's brains enough to be a good governess : in 
the present advanced stage of civilization, intelli- 
gence is so much commoner than either beauty or 
virtue, that one expects it as a matter of course. 
Go on." 

" Well, then," returned the lady, in perfect 
good humor, '' she's about the size of our Edith 
(who was middle-sized) — a trifle taller, per- 
haps — pale, thin, gray eyes, long lashes, light 
hair, straight nose, good mouth, excellent teeth, 
white hands, well made, and little feet." 



234 The Governess. 

" Rather a romantic creature, then," ejaculated 
the husband. " How does she dress ? " 

" Very plainly, yet with some taste. She would 
not be an ornament here," pursued the wife, 
glancing complacently around the elegant draw- 
ing-room, " yet she will certainly not disfigure it." 

"You think we can trust her at table?" 

" Oh, certainly. I have not seen her eat, but 
I feel sure that she can do so gracefully. In fact, 
there is only one objection to her, she, as you 
know, is a ." 

Mary Lorn, the governess, and her mother 
lived in two second-story rooms hired from the 
Dutch confectioner, who occupied the basement 
with his shop and kitchen, and the attic with his 
family. Mr. Lorn, the father, had been one of 
those whole-souled, high-bred men who live be- 
yond their incomes, die in debt, and leave a score 
of creditors, yet not a single friend. The widow's 
descent from her handsome establishment to her 
present quarters was gradual, but inevitable ; and 
there she seemed fixed forever, without the hope 
or wish to rise. Despised by her rivals, neglected 



The Governess. 235 

by her friends, she was thoroughly disgusted with 
rich people, and preferred the poor confectioner's 
wife to the best of the magnates who knew her 
once, to scorn her now. . . . 

Mary was sixteen at her father's death, and 
had been educated chiefly by her mother, who was 
every way equal to the task. She was expected 
to create a sensation, when the sudden loss of 
wealth of course blighted her prospects and her 
charms. Nothing — not even the smallpox — 
disfigures a belle so soon as poverty. 

>(: ^ ^ ^ ^ 

We need not say how Mary's heart trembled 
as the burnished equipage glided rapidly from 
street to street. A thousand hopes and a thou- 
sand fears crossed her mind in such rapid succes- 
sion that the ride seemed a troubled dream. She 
checked her tears at the sight of Fairface House, 
and entered it, pale, but outwardly calm. Mrs. 
Fairface, who was determined to be civil and pat- 
ronizing, met her in the passage, and kissed the 
trembling creature. 

'' What are you afraid of, my dear ? " she said, 
and, passing her arm around Mary's waist, led 



236 The Governess. 

her into an apartment adjoining the breakfast- 
room. Mr. Fairface was there, diligently reading 
the morning paper, that modern substitute for 
morning prayers. He gently lowered his spec- 
tacles as the governess entered, and, courteously 
rising, bowed and took her hand. The instant 
he met her eye a shudder passed over him, and 
his florid cheek grew, in an instant, as white as 
hers on whom he gazed. Mary was embarrassed, 
and Mrs. Fairface could not but discern some rare 
emotion in the ever-placid face of her spouse. 

''Your name?" asked Fairface, remembering 
himself and recovering. 

" Mary Lorn." 

" Lorn enough," he sighed, after a short pause, 
during which a watery film gathered in his eye. 

This awkward state of things was suspended 
by the entrance of Edith. She was one of those 
fresh, fascinating characters, all bloom and joy, — 
in appearance, all that is good and fair ; in reality, 
nothing. She came stealing in with a bright, 
happy, loving smile, and advancing straight to 
Mary, without introduction or other preface, put 
her arms around her neck and emraced her ten- 
derly. 



The Governess. 237 

The large, warm tears gushed from Mary's eyes 
at this unexpected mercy. She could not raise 
her head from Edith's shoulder, but hung there 

and wept. 

" Keep her on any terms/' whispered Fairface 
to his wife, and he bolted from the room, as if 
to save himself from suffocating. 

Why Mary wept so long may easily be guessed ; 
the gratitude of a true woman's heart sparkles 
only in the mute tear that loads the eye. And 
yet, there might have been in that poor, father- 
less girl's heart a sense of shame in needing the 
affectionate support of a stranger, who, by the 
exhibition of sympathy, testified a knowledge of 
her distress. 

Edith and Mary were of the same age, and 
yet how different. Mrs. Fairface, whose kind 
heart was disposed to magnify the pretensions 
of her protegee, had rather overestimated her 
charms. There was nothing striking or capti- 
vating in her person, face or address to attract 
the great mass of mortals. We rarely find out 
true beauty, either of mind or matter, unless there 
is some good critic or a finger-board to point it 



23^ The Goz'crness. 

out. No one could ever arrive at the gems of an 
opera or a novel unless there were newspapers 
to select them. But Edith was one of those uni- 
versal charmers, admired alike by good and bad, 
wise and silly, old and young — whom no one 
can cherish without having a host of rivals just 
as able to appreciate her excellence as he is him- 
self. There they stood : Edith rich, happy, 
healthy — Mary poor, sad, and almost prema- 
turely old. It was a contrast that might tempt 
a better pencil. 

Such is the tenderness of the female heart that 
it naturally inclines to relieve misfortune, until 
years of fashion or sin have weakened or destroyed 
the propensity. Edith, from her own impulses 
and her mother's instructions, was resolved to 
treat Mary as a sister at first, and to continue in 
that relation as long as Mary appeared to merit 
it. If our good resolutions cost nothing but the 
making of them, what a delightful world we 
should live in. 

^ jj< j|c ;{; ^ 

In the meanwhile Mrs. Fairface was prepar- 
ing for the great interview destined to precede the 



The Governess. 239 

temporary concession of her darlings, her two 
jewels, to another's partial keeping and partial 
influence. Mary was soon summoned to her sit- 
ting-room, and there the colloquy began. 

" My dear Alary," said Mrs. Fairface, " the 
sooner we understand each other the better ; and 
a full preliminary explanation frequently averts 
much subsequent misunderstanding." 

This exordium, which Sam Johnson himself 
might have envied, was received by the governess 
in profound silence. 

jjj :|: ;|c :j; jj; 

The door opened, and les petits bijoux ap- 
peared — Carry and Jessie. Carry was a cherub- 
faced, cherub-mouthed, rosy-cheeked creature of 
thirteen, in short, the ruby ; Jessie was two years 
younger, pale, pensive, timid, light hair and light 
eyes, and, as Mary thought, the pearl. Carry 
was like Edith, Jessie was like no one in the fam- 
ily. Carry was everybody's pet, Jessie nobody's, 
not even her father's. The introduction was in- 
tended to be imposing, though Mary commanded 
her gravity only by remembrance of her position. 
Carry looked up in her face and smiled sweetly, 



2 40 The Governess. 

shaking her curls archly as she repeated the set 
speech, — 

" You must make us learn so fast, Miss IMary, 
that pa and ma shall be proud of us.'' 

Jessie hung her head, blushed and said nothing, 
like a good child who does nothing, because noth- 
ing is expected. But with the quick glance of 
childhood, Jessie had already recognized a friend 
and taken her first lesson — love. 

Mary stooped and kissed each — perhaps she 
paused a moment longer over Jessie ; but the pref- 
erence was imperceptible, except to Jessie herself, 
who scarce knew how to receive, still less to re- 
turn, an embrace. The child stood still, but in 
her face arose the flush of happiness, and all 
around her grew radiant at the promise of a pro- 
tector and a friend. 

" You can play to-day," said Mrs. Fairface, 
patting Carry's dainty head. " Saturday is a holi- 
day all the world over for the young, and Miss 
Mary will excuse you until Monday morning." 

Mary bowed to the mother, and the children, 
hand in hand, tripped away to see what the cook 
was making for dinner. 



The Governess. ^41 

" What do you think of Carry ? " asked Mrs. 
Fairface. 

" She is very beautiful," repHed the governess. 

" As for Jessie," resumed the mother, '' she is 
good, but she is a queer child. It is a pity she 
is so unlike her sisters, but I am sure she will 
give you no trouble." 

'' On the contrary, I like her quite as well as 
her sister." 

"You do!" exclaimed Mrs. Fairface, in amaze- 
ment ; and Mary wondered no longer at the pale 
face of the neglected child. 

'' Pa is coming," said Edith, as she entered 
the room, and shortly after the prophecy pa 
appeared, accompanied by a young gentleman, to 
whom Mrs. Fairface was all attention, and before 
whom Edith blushed. 

" You are happier, I see," said Mr. Fairface, 
in an undertone to Mary. " Believe me, you are 
not amongst strangers. What were her terms ? " 
he continued, taking his wife aside. 

" Oh, you mean what she expected us to pay ? " 

" Why, certainly I do." 

" Well, really," stammered the lady, coloring, 
'' I omitted that." 



2 42 TJie Governess. 

" Of course you did," said Fairface, smiling in 
ineffable scorn. " Of course you did, you dear, 
good, business-hating woman. The arrange- 
ment's left for me?" 

" Yes." 

" Agreed ! " 

Mary bowed, and they returned to the other 
room, where the dinner was soon announced. A 
governess at table, nine times out of ten, Is annoy- 
ing to others and a torment to herself. Annoy- 
ing to others, because they scarcely know how to 
treat her, or what to say to her; they have to 
hit the difficult medium between too much atten- 
tion and too little respect. Even a poor relation 
is not half so troublesome — the family at least 
is ascertained, and there is one point of com- 
munion, though the coat may not be so new nor 
the gown so bright. A torment to herself, be- 
cause she is well aware of the restraint she im- 
poses on the others ; because forced civility is 
easily told and little relished ; because she is rather 
tolerated than welcomed, a retainer rather than a 
guest. If human nature were the correct thing 



The Governess. 243 

it is sometimes said to be, if its inherent dignity 
were anything more than none of the clearest 
starch, the case might be otherwise. But it is 
certain that Mary wished herself anywhere else 
in the world than just where she was, between 
Carry and Jessie, immediately opposite Edith and 
her accepted ; and it is equally certain that young 
Henry Arlington would have gratified her wish 
with fairy-book rapidity, and transported her to 
Lapland or New Zealand without so much as one 
regret. And even did we pry too closely into 
Edith's breast and her mother's heart, a shadow 
of the same wish might be discerned. But for 
Fairface, the meal would have been insufferably 
heavy ; but he broke the ice with the edge of his 
bold, broad humor, and without any apparent 
exertion diverted the attention from Mary to 
himself. The high-spirited girl — for proud she 
was — had accepted his liberality without a spark 
of gratitude, but her heart warmed to him at this 
mark of nobler generosity. Hitherto she had 
doubted Fairface ; she now felt inclined to trust 
him, and when they rose she felt as if her guar- 
dian angel, lingering at the confectioner's room, 



2 44 The Governess. 

had just followed her, and was in the house. And 
who that moves into a new house has not some- 
times felt with Mary? 

Edith, the blooming, led the way to the parlor, 
assiduously escorted by Henry Arlington. Mrs. 
Fairface followed with Carry; and Jessie, the 
forlorn, with the governess, brought up the rear. 
Fairface remained at the table enjoying his cigar 
and his glass of wine. We are tempted to remain 
with him and expose the thoughts of this singular 
compound of delicacy and coarseness, — to exer- 
cise the novelist's privilege of knowing and tell- 
ing what passes in the minds of his characters; 
but let us leave him to his meditations, for Edith 
is singing. It may be remembered that Mary's 
services were not required for Edith, who was 
accounted perfect — finished in every respect and 
above tuition. 

:Jc ;|c * * * 

There is nothing in after-life approaching the 
utter loneliness of a neglected child. As our 
years advance, our resources increase; we learn 
to stand alone, to live in ourselves, and by gradual 
experience curtail our sympathies and mark the 



The Governess. 245 

lines between ourselves and others. But a noble 
child cannot exist in itself ; like a luxuriant vine 
it shoots out a thousand tendrils, beseeching a 
prop to lift it from the ground ; it must have love, 
sympathy, support ; from within, it gathers noth- 
ing ; the tender flower looks up for the light and 
the dew of human kindness. And when those ten- 
drils are rudely shaken from the parent stem, 
when the accidental prop of an hour is torn from 
its bleeding clasp, what, after all, is the pang of 
despised love, in contrast with such bitter, hope- 
less suffering? 



246 Loretto. 



LORETTO. 

The horses stepped of their own accord beside 
a httle ice-bound brook, and then walked most 
leisurely. The road was shut in by hiils and 
trees, and wound gradually from a hollow up 
to a high point of land, commanding a fine 
view of the city and the river beyond it. Mel- 
ville smiled sadly ; the intelligent animals were 
truer to the past than he. Yes, it was Lei's 
favorite ride! There had she been day after day 
with him ; in spring, when the first flowers were 
blooming, when the loving leaves stretched forth 
their tender cheeks to the soft kisses of the south 
winds, and decked the reviving branches for 
wooing birds; in summer, when the little brook 
babbled against the heat, when thirsting doves 
came to drink and peck there, when the flocks 
and herds slumbered in the cool shade of noble 



Lorctto. 247 

oaks, when the bearded wheat and tasselled 
corn waved m green and gold; in autumn, 
when the mellow fruit glanced in beauty through 
the orchards, when every hill-top and every bot- 
tom glowed in gorgeous livery of a thousand 
dyes, as if the numberless leaves had caught 
and held fast the colors of the sunset clouds. 



After tea they took a walk down the road — 
Agnes with her mother, Lei with the Colonel. 
Lcl had never seen Loretto in summer ; the 
hand of a fairy seemed to have passed over 
the place ; all round her was beauty and repose. 
The lark was gliding lazily to bed ; the night- 
hawk was wheeling and darting through the 
air ; the cows were soberly walking home '* as 
if conscious of human affection ; " the sheep 
were lying down in white groups for the night ; 
the trees sighed in the evening wind ; and the 
distant spire of the convent was colored by the 
crimson clouds on which the sun was still shin- 
ing from beneath the horizon. There was a 
holy calm in Lei's breast, as beautiful and pro- 



248 Loretto. 

found as the repose of the scene on which she 
gazed. 

:^ ^ -^ -^ ^f. 

Whilst Agnes was thus advancing in the 
school of the cross, Lei undertook to accomplish 
herself in all the departments of country life. 
She rose before the sun, and (gentle reader, 
wince not!) fed the chickens, pigeons, geese, 
ducks and turkeys ; she learned that corn was 
planted and wheat sown ; she was initiated into 
the mysteries of milking, creaming, churning, 
curds and cheese; and her rural ambition en- 
deared her to every hand about the place, to the 
dairymaid in particular. She knew the names of 
all the birds, and could distinguish them by their 
notes; the lark, the plover, the robin, the quail, 
the woodcock, the flicker, the blackbird, were no 
longer strangers, but familiar friends. She loved 
to take the shade with the reapers at nooning, 
and laugh and jest with them ; and there, with 
her green sun-bonnet cast carelessly aside, and 
her back against the rough tree, few would 
have recognized in our Lei the admitted leader 
of fashion, the reigning star of many a winter. 



Loretto. 249 

After dinner the next day they went to the 
card-room together. Lei begged not to have 
the gas lit, so they sat and talked in the beautiful 
twilight — talked over old times, and Mrs. Hoity, 
and Sister Agnes, until, one by one, the same 
set began to drop in and the room was lighted. 
Then, for the first time, Mr. Almy observed an 
addition to the furniture. Lei had ordered a 
piano on trial ; her old one was wearing out at 
last; Chickering's grands were said to be so 
much better than hers. It was a noble instru- 
ment, and stood pretty well out in the room so 
as to have its finger-board well under the action 
of the gasolier. She had also bought a quantity 
of new music to play over for Melville, and it 
lay menacingly on the card-table. But she swept 
it away as soon as the gentlemen appeared, and, 
after exchanging compliments with them, began 
to try it over with the soft pedal down. She 
had kept her word, and found some other way 
to amuse herself, as she had promised. This 
was her masked battery. 

She touched the keys very lightly at first — 
just a note here and there — a Httle spirit of 



250 Loretto. 

melody and then silence. She seemed disposed 
to respect the sanctity of their game ; she would 
doubtless go to bed soon. But two of the prin- 
cipal players were two of her oldest adorers ; 
they had petted her when she was a child, and 
made her sing and play for them as soon as she 
could strike an octave or turn a tune. They 
were two bachelor brothers, very fond of good 
living and good music — very fond of cards, too, 
subordinately. Lei remembered perfectly that 
Sam, the elder, had a weakness for '' God save 
the King." He considered " God save the King " 
the greatest mortal composition. He could 
whistle a light opera through after one hearing, 
but he stuck to '' God Save the King " for all 
that. After trifling with her new music an hour 
or more, she threw it aside and began to impro- 
vise. She began a very long way from the Eng- 
lish anthem, but Sam instantly pricked up his 
ears — he scented the melody afar off. He looked 
once or twice askant at his Brother Barnard. 
Now and then a dreamy suggestion of the strain 
came sweeping by in a swift, smothered minor, 
and Sam was all at sea, mistook two pairs for 



Loretio. 25 1 

a full, and got well laughed at in the bargain ; 
but Barnard, although he controlled himself bet- 
ter, got nervous, too, and forgot to pass the knife 
and anti, much to the disgust of several ancient 
gentlemen who could not account for such ab- 
surd behavior. Presently, however, the full 
phrase was enunciated, and Lei carried the theme 
straight and simply through with her left hand. 
Then all was chaos again, with a vague purpose 
glimmering through it — with only a feeble, 
broken spiral of sunshine on the troubled waters. 
And then a grand let-there-be-light prelude, as 
she swept the scale with both hands, lashing 
the powerful instrument into orchestral fury, and 
looking herself like an inspired priestess of song. 
After much coughing and choking, after several 
suppressed indications of joining in the air, after 
manifold fatal discardings, and serious losses, 
Sam threw down his hand and burst in with the 
words, at the top of his voice. They tried to 
stop him, but it was no use ; he went through to 
the end. 



2^2 Sentences, Phrases, and Figures. 



SENTENCES, PHRASES AND FIGURES. 



A reptile's life is poor vengeance for his sting. 

Dishonor must be lived down; we cannot die 
it out. 

When God deserts, let man be truer to himself. 

I HAVE chased 
These flying honors with such headlong speed, 
The shock of meeting them has stunned me. 

Heroes seem always mad to fools and cowards. 
War, on whose burnished wings insulted Peace 
Escape the ravishment of Tyranny. 

A hero's but the idol of a crowd : 

A husband worth the name — a household god. 

The panther crouches ere he smites his prey. 
A woman's smile transmutes 
Our sigh to transport and our tears to pearl. 

Her lips were arched in heaven and falsehood 
found no footing there. 



Sentences, Phrases and Figures. 253 

Like two sweet springs they met and then 
flowed on together. 

To KNOW God only by reputation. 

To FLY at you Hke a bhnd bat. 

He might have said a great deal more and 
meant a great deal less. 

A FAVORABLE specimen of metallic aristocracy. 

He's so much better than he looks that I'm 
ashamed of his appearance. 

Light-hearted as she was, it did not require 
a microscope to detect the worm of grief lurking 
beneath the gaily tinted rind of merriment. 

A LIGHT manner may accompany a strong, 
true heart, just as exterior dignity may hide a 
weak one. 

Men may say De Soto failed ; they shall never 
say he faltered. 

If you war on woman, let your adversary be 
more than a girl. 

A LIGHT-HEARTED, flippant girl, with wit 
enough to amuse others, but without prudence 
enough to govern herself. 



254 Sentences, Phrases and Figures. 

Let a man be his own first friend : he'll have 
the second one soon enough. 

There are sorrows in which we cling to friends 
for comfort ; but there are deeper ones, when our 
own accusing conscience inflames the wound, from 
which our friends, the witnesses of our weakness, 
are banished. 

A WARM fancy is often mistaken for a warm 
heart, because it has all the language of sorrow 
when feeling is dumb. 

The child that is dying seems of more value 
than all the rest. 

A sensitive nature, ever fearful of paining 
others, often introduces the subject it shrinks 
from in the bluntest way. 

Parental coldness blights the noblest child. 

A noble nature hves a double life, feeling an- 
other's rapture as well as its own. 

When two women meet in controversy, good- 
bye to a fair conclusion. 



Sentences, Phrases and Figures. 255 

We are easily deluded into good nature, when 
what we know to be a failure is construed by 
others into success. 

A YOUNG lady after a ball is like a spring that 
has been stirfed with a stick: the skies are no 
longer reflected ; there is no inducement either to 
stop to gaze or to stoop to drink. Even the bright, 
gurgling laugh is but a muddy murmur. 

The prisoner released from his familiar cell 
trembles and droops in the daylight, and the 
existence for which he has pined is at first dreary 
and desolate. 

In moments of anguish we often think aloud. 

Sorrow, passion, death, were encountered by 
God in descending to man ; sorrow, passion, 
death, must be encountered by man in ascending 
to God. 

There is nothing so little valued by society 
as the pleasures of religion, whilst nothing is 
less prized by religion than the pleasures of 
society. 

So MANY acquaintances, without one friend ! 



256 Sentences, Phrases and Figures. 

Dress makes many a fool pass current, and 
many a monster human. 

The world is never well pleased when called 
on to admire virtues it does not practice. 

A WEDDING is always one note, at least, above a 
funeral. 

C^SAR must have his Brutus, Charles the First, 
his Cromwell, and poets — their publishers. 

From the way in which innocence is seen to 
cleave to depravity, I am inclined to think there is 
a sneaking fondness for the devil in the best 
of us. 

Only by constant meditation do we compre- 
hend that life is but a preparation for death ; and 
unless this great truth is realized, where is the 
folly in living as if time were the main thing 
and eternity a trifle ? 



LB H 78 



